Avoid love with fear

First, rearrange the furniture of your heart

so nothing invites a lingering start,

angle each chair toward the exit sign,

teach every welcome to stand in line.

Practice a smile that closes like glass,

warm at a distance, quick to pass,

let laughter hover but never land,

a bird that refuses the offered hand.

When someone’s voice begins to stay,

salt the silence, look away,

answer in fractions, measured and small,

build every sentence a careful wall.

Keep your stories folded tight,

suitcases packed for sudden flight,

speak of weather, the price of bread,

not the storm that lives in your head.

If a hand finds yours by accident or art,

return it gently, part by part,

say you are busy, tired, unclear,

polish the word later until it’s sincere.

At night, when memory softens the door

and asks what you’re guarding yourself for,

list all the ruins you’ve memorized well,

recite them slowly, a protective spell.

Tell your chest that cages care,

that distance is breathable, lighter air,

that love is a room with a collapsing stair,

and you are wise to remain nowhere.

Repeat this daily, fluent and fast,

until avoidance becomes your cast,

until even your pulse learns how to move

without expecting another to approve.

But understand—though you follow each rule

with scholar’s discipline, tactician’s tool—

fear is a map that loops in a groove,

and love walks circles it doesn’t remove.

One day a crack in the pattern appears,

a warmth misfiled in the archive of years,

you’ll tighten your grip, rehearse your fears—

and feel something knocking

That does not hear…