Men in Love

Over the years of my writing, I have often imagined how women love and feel. I have written of a woman’s heart — how it can be crushed under the rocks thrown at her by the very men she loved.

And yet, not until this year did I realize something — I have rarely paused to think about men in love.

And not the loud, dramatic kind of love.

Not the poetic, bleeding-on-paper kind.

But the quiet kind.
The kind that sits in their chest and refuses to come out.

Maybe I never wrote about men in love because they are taught they are practical. Stable. Providers. Less emotional.
As if responsibility has replaced their softness.

But softness does not disappear.
It just hides better in men.

Men in love are easy to miss.

You won’t notice it when they are standing in front of you.
You notice it when you turn around to leave.

And something in you feels their eyes still there.

They look at you like they are trying to memorize the back of your head.
Like they want two more minutes of your presence in the air.
Like they almost say “wait” —

but swallow it.

They do not speak because they are terrified of being misunderstood.
Of looking weak.
Of caring more than you do.

Men in love look at you from the corner of their eye.
Not because they aren’t confident —
but because they are studying you.

Your smile.
Your mood swings.
The way you roll your eyes when they tease you.

They replay it later. Alone.

Men in love smile differently.

There’s the real smile — the one that reaches their eyes when you laugh.
There’s the polite smile-when they didn’t fully listen but want you to think they did.
There’s the impressed smile-small, proud, quiet-when you say something intelligent and they think, God, she’s brilliant.

They don’t always say it.
But they feel it.

Men in love carry old damage.

A heartbreak from years ago that they pretend did not hurt.
A betrayal they never processed.
A moment they decided they would never be that vulnerable again.

So they build a wall.

Not brick.
Not stone.

Something transparent.
So you can see them.
But you still can’t fully touch them.

Men in love get angry when you don’t eat.
When you don’t rest.
When you let the world mistreat you.

It comes out as irritation-but underneath it is fear.

Men in love become protective because they have been in rooms with other men.
They have heard how some of them talk.
They know what ugliness exists.
And they would burn the world down before letting it reach you.

Men in love try to hold your finger first.

Because holding your whole hand feels like too much to ask for.
Because rejection would crush them more than they will ever admit.

If you ever look long enough into a man in love’s eyes- really look,you will see it.

That softness.
That melt.
That surrender he will never confess out loud.

Men in love are not loud about it.
They don’t always write poems.
They don’t always cry.

But they love in protection.
In silence.
In showing up.
In fixing things you didn’t even know were broken.

And the men who truly love-they carry their hearts in their hands, pretending they are strong enough to survive another fall.

But the truth is —if it breaks one more time,they don’t know if they will know how to put it back together again.

To be continued..because I don’t yet know everything about Men in Love.