Asking for what you want
Say It Anyway
A Love Letter to the One With Unspoken Longing
There’s a something on your tongue.
It tastes like fear and honey.
Unmet longing.
You want to ask. You don’t know how.
Maybe you were taught to wait.
To be chosen, intuited, figured out without ever needing to speak.
Maybe your body learned that asking meant punishment, or silence, or shame.
So you stayed quiet. Soft. Good.
But the wanting didn’t go away, did it?
It’s still there.
Churning in your belly.
Pressing against your chest like a tide.
Sometimes it slips out in sideways ways
A sigh. A withdrawal.
A look you hope is loud enough to be understood.
You are not alone in this.
I’ve folded myself around unsaid needs so many times I lost the shape of my own hunger.
Told myself, “If they loved me, they’d just know.”
Convinced myself I was too much.
Or not enough.
But there comes a moment.
Quiet at first, then all encompassing.
When your longing refuses to be buried one more time.
And in that moment, you have a choice.
To whisper it.
To risk it.
To let the words leave your mouth like offerings.
“I want to be held tonight.”
“I need more slowness.”
“I ache for this thing and it terrifies me to say so.”
Not every wish will be granted.
But that’s not what this is about.
It’s about standing, trembling maybe, but standing
In your truth.
Because asking is a holy act.
Not a demand.
Not a test.
A revealing.
A key.
It says: I am here. I am real. I want.
I am alive.
And maybe they’ll meet you with open hands.
Maybe they won’t.
But still: say it.
Not for the outcome.
For the becoming.
And you might be surprised.
The woman who asks is the woman who trusts her own worth.
The man who voices his need is the man who reclaims his softness.
There is sacredness in the asking.
Even if your voice shakes.
Even if the answer is no.
Because the moment you speak, you are no longer waiting in the dark.
You are alive.
Seen.
Honest.
So say it anyway.
Whenever you’re ready.
Not because it’s safe.
Because it’s true.
