I Don’t Need You/Please Hold Me

Alison Sparks
2 min readApr 21, 2022
Photo by Joanna Wozniak on Pexels.

I question everything about my feelings on men. What even is genuine, and what is some stupid trauma response that I developed? Do I really like him, or do I just want a father figure in my life? I don’t know. I’m confused.

Two years of therapy have done wonders, but there are still so many things to untangle. They’re like a yucky clump of hair in the shower drain — the more you pull out, the more comes out. It seems like there is no end. And too many things stem from daddy issues. Thanks, dad. (Although you’ll never admit your wrongs.)

The idea of dating men has me conflicted. While I want to be held in someone’s strong arms and experience all the good things of being with a man, I am weary. I’ve been hurt by men in my life not once, not twice, but way too many times. How do I make sure this doesn’t happen again? That’s right, I can’t. I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place, as I try to choose between loneliness and safety or closeness and the risk of getting hurt again. The truth is — I can be quite forgiving. And sometimes I can’t tell if my big heart is a good quality or my biggest downfall. I don’t want to be fooled or hurt, but I want to love and boy, do I have so much love to give!

But right now I’m just tired. Tired of being tired, stressed out, reaching out first, rolling out with the punches… I want to curl up in someone’s…

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Alison Sparks

Just a writer, sharing my musings on sex, sexuality, sex work, mental health and LGBTQ+ topics.