hedgehog dilemma

The hedgehog dilemma is a philosophical concept used to scope the vulnerability of emotional intimacy of humans - that much like freezing hedgehogs, we end up quilling away the warmth. I have quilled away quite some warmth of my own, almost like having my spikes stand up till their ends was a reflex. It’s quite a rotten feeling, to crave life for so long that when it does reach, I’d rather leave it behind the glass and want in my head instead. However clearly I see and understand life now, I still can’t bear to touch it. So I end up doing what I usually do best, which is to run to the kind of warmth that’s all fire, half apologies and the wrong kind of love.

I’m not foreign to this run, the kind that has me looking over my shoulder to watch what I left behind simply out of spite, or fear- depending on how much I’d want to punish myself on that given day. But the thing I will never admit to anyone who’s met me is how desperately I wish to be loved. It spills into my mouth like cotton, leaving me sputtering and choking on this strange, gagging desire - to have my palms held and wrists kissed, knowing that the warmth I crave isn’t what I would find in the wreckage I find myself drifting towards, but something as simple as sunlight on a winter’s day. Fear renders me absolutely paralysed, but, and I continue to become all bitter and untouchable. I float through the halls of intimacy, yet stay rooted in the corridor knowing opening the right door leads me right where I want to be. I was always ashamed to want, so what I could do was give, and I disguised it as my virtue. I was always scared of being held tender, so I offered myself up on a platter and hoped that being touched wrong would erase my need to be grasped gentle. I cry at the love I do end up receiving, in its deceitful and shallow means, because I’m scared to look at those who love me right in the eye without it making my stomach turn.