This Valentine’s Day, I bought clothes for a partner. I took both out for dinner. I brought them flowers. I did what I always do — I made the day deliberate, visible, celebratory.

What I received was a card from A. Inside it, he had written only two names: mine and his. Nothing more than what the printed card already said.

There was no added line. No awkward attempt at poetry. No private joke. No scribbled sentiment.

And I realised something I have known for years but rarely allow myself to articulate: I am the romantic one. I am the initiator. I am the one who leans in first for a kiss. I am the one who asks for intimacy. I am the one who creates the moment and then steps into it, hoping someone will meet me there.

This is not a complaint. It is a truth.

I have seen straight men forget birthdays, forget anniversaries, forget tenderness altogether. In comparison, I know I have been fortunate. I have partners who are kind. Partners who are steady. Partners who chose me. That matters.

But romance is a different language. And in that language, I often feel like I am speaking alone.

The past month has been relentless. Zach’s illness. Zach’s death. Now Xena’s illness. Fear has become a permanent hum in the background of my days. Grief sits at the foot of the bed.

Both my partners know this has been hard. They have seen it. They have lived beside it. And yet there has been no unexpected embrace, no quiet pulling into arms without being asked, no coming into bed and simply holding me because they sensed I was tired.

That is all any of us want, isn’t it?
To be seen without having to announce ourselves.
To be understood without having to explain the wound.

Instead, Valentine’s felt like another day suspended between fear and memory.

And then I feel small for even thinking this way. Because the world outside is burning. There are horrors unfolding as I write this. There is cruelty without accountability. There are griefs that dwarf my own.

Who am I to long for a kiss when there is so much suffering?

But feelings do not obey global hierarchies. Pain does not queue politely behind larger catastrophes. My problems are still my problems. My loneliness, even inside love, is still mine.

I no longer have a wide circle of friends. I have my mother. I have my sister. I have my partners, who are my chosen family. And having once been hurt by chosen family, I carry a quiet fear of losing again.

Perhaps that fear makes me hold back from saying, “I am tired.”
Perhaps it makes me soften my needs so they do not feel like demands.

But tonight, I will say it gently.

I am tired.
Not of love — never of love — but of always being the one who reaches first.

I do not need grand gestures. I do not need theatrics. I only need to be gathered sometimes without asking.

Valentine’s Day is supposed to celebrate romance. For me, it became a reminder that even inside devotion, one can feel a small, private ache.

And still — I choose love.
I choose my family.
I choose to stay.

But I also choose to acknowledge that even the one who gives the flowers sometimes wants to receive them without having to hint.

That is not selfish.
That is human.
And perhaps that, too, is a form of courage.