the door you think is open directive | red room no. 65
she let you in. that’s not the same as letting you stay.
access is not intimacy
you slept with her.
you think that means something.
it does.
just not what you think it means.
—
men confuse access with trust constantly.
she let you in her bed.
she let you in her body.
she let you say things to her
no one else gets to say.
so you assume the door is open.
all the way open.
—
it isn't.
—
she can want you
and still not trust you.
she can choose you
and still be deciding, in real time,
how much further you get to go.
every door she opens
tells you exactly where you stand.
not where you assume you stand.
—
most men never notice the difference.
they get one door open
and start walking through all of them.
that's when it breaks.
that's when she pulls back
and he says he doesn't understand what happened.
he understood one thing.
he just never learned the rest.
