Notes from the Mind Palace.

I am a hopeless romantic.
Not the soft,pink and glittery, “I love long walks on the beach” kind.

I’m the kind who believes in soul-recognition — in that moment when you lock eyes with someone and something ancient inside you whispers, Oh. Him. I’m the kind who dreams of a man with steady hands and a voice that feels like home. The kind who wants to be carried, protected, adored, treated like a queen even though I’m built like a demon who learned to survive by clawing her way out of every hell pit alone.

And predators love that.

Oh do they LOVE that.

They don’t just notice it — they hunt for it.
They smell that softness like blood in the water.
They see the romantic part of me as an unlocked door.
They see strength in love they do no know how to feel and they seek to break it.

My father told me once — in one of those moments where truth comes out sharper than love — that the only kind of man who would want me is the kind that ain't worth shit just like you.
And I didn’t want to believe him.
I fought that idea.
I rejected it.
I called it cruel, unfair, wrong, abuse.

But then life kept handing me proof.

Over and over, just how unworthy of love I truly am
The men who showed up weren’t knights.
They weren’t protectors.
They weren’t partners.
They weren't even "real men" when I sit back and think about it.

What even constitutes a "real man" these days or a "real woman".

I digress...

They were men who hated women, hated me — quietly, subtly, or openly.
Men who saw softness as weakness.
Men who saw vulnerability as opportunity.
Men who saw my romantic heart as a map to destruction.

And I kept choosing them.

Not because I wanted to.
Not because I didn’t know better.
But because predators know how to mimic the fantasy long enough to get close.

They don’t come at me with violence. at first.
They come at me with tenderness.
With intensity.
With attention.
With the exact dream I’ve been starving for.

They study me.
They mirror me.
They imitate the man I’ve imagined in the dark.

They say the right words.
They hold eye contact too long.
They touch my arm like it means something.
They tell me I’m special, different, chosen. Amazing.

And I fall for it — not because I’m foolish, but because I’m human. Because I want to believe that someone might actually choose me above all else without trying to break me first. Because I want the story where the demon gets carried out of the fire instead of having to claw her own way out again.

But predators don’t rescue.
They break, they consume. they kill.

They take the romantic part of me — the part that still hopes, still aches, still imagines — and twist it into a leash. They use my longing as a doorway. They weaponize my softness against me. They turn my desire for connection into a vulnerability they can exploit.

And every time it happened, I heard my father’s words echoing in the back of my mind.
Not as prophecy, Or as destiny.
But as a warning I didn’t want to understand.

So I started re-evaluating the pattern.

Why did I keep choosing men who hated women?
Why did I keep falling for the same charm, the same intensity, the same imitation of love?
Why did I keep mistaking attention for affection, obsession for devotion, possession for protection?

The answer was brutal:
Because predators know how to perform romance.
And I was hungry for the performance. because I've never actually known real love.

I wanted the myth so badly that I ignored the rot underneath the costume. I wanted the dream man so intensely that I let myself believe the illusion. I wanted to be carried, adored, chosen — and they used that against me. Repeatedly.

So now I live in the contradiction:

I want to be saved.
I don’t believe in being saved.
I crave the myth.
I trust the truth.
I dream of rescue.
I prepare for war.

And maybe that’s what makes me dangerous — not the demon part, but the romantic part. The part that still hopes even after everything. The part that still imagines a man who doesn’t use my softness against me, but guards it like something sacred.

I don’t expect him.
I don’t wait for him.
I don’t hinge my survival on him.

But I still want him.

The one who doesn’t pretend to be a knight — he just is one.
The one who doesn’t exploit my tender heart — he protects it.
The one who doesn’t fear my darkness — he stands in it with me.

Until then, I stay both things:

The demon who saves herself.
And the romantic who still dreams of being carried.