There is a hunger inside me that refuses to be quiet. It is not soft. It does not wait patiently. It crashes against me like a wave I cannot control, a current that drags me deeper no matter how tightly I try to hold the surface. I let it. I let it take me, because I know this is how I will find myself by letting my body and my soul be split open by intensity.

The tension lives in my skin before a touch ever reaches me. It hums like static in the air, electric and merciless, the kind of energy that makes me ache in silence. I surrender to it, not because I am weak, but because I am unafraid of what it awakens in me. There is a holiness in that surrender, an act of worship to my own hunger, to the fire that refuses to let me settle for lukewarm.

Yes, I know desire this sharp can wound me. I know the flames I step into could burn me until I am unrecognizable. But I would rather burn than live untouched. I would rather bleed than wither. Because every blaze I walk through teaches me who I will never be again…

So if I get hurt, let it happen. Let me collapse. Let me bleed. Let me be brought to my knees by the weight of it. Because I know I will rise. And when I do, I will rise sharper, stronger, brighter than before. I will rise as a woman who carries fire in her veins, who knows she is worthy of intensity without apology, who knows she deserves everything she craves.

This is not about anyone else. This is about me. About allowing myself to step fully into the storm, even when it terrifies me, because on the other side I will find her; the woman who does not flinch at her own hunger, who does not apologize for needing more, who will never again accept less than the fire she was built for.

“The Mirror I Didn’t Need Anymore“

Some connections aren’t built on love or even lust.
They’re built on need.
Not the kind that fills your cup
but the kind that reminds you,
for a fleeting moment,
that you still exist.

He wasn’t a stranger.
He was once tied to someone I used to love deeply
someone who couldn’t meet me, couldn’t choose me,
but still left a mark.

They were close once; shared a roof, a bond, a history.
But distrust brewed quietly in that space.
Possessiveness. Suspicion.
The kind that turns friends into strangers and turns women like me into forbidden territory.
I always knew I was being watched, even when I hadn’t done anything wrong.

Eventually, the friendship between them shattered.
And once it did, he and I started speaking again.
Just as friends at first; nothing more, nothing less.

But over time, that shifted.
Not into love.
Not into something dangerous.
Just into something mutually hollow.

I didn’t want him.
Not like that.

He was never the one I longed for in the silence.
Never the name I whispered to the universe.
Never the face I saw in the flicker of old memories.

But I still replied.
Still let the flirtation stretch into comfort.
Still danced with it, because in that moment,
it felt better than the silence I had grown tired of sitting in.

He gave me attention.
Compliments.
Energy that felt good to receive
but never truly touched the places inside me that were aching.

And I gave him the same.
Knowing damn well neither of us was what the other truly wanted.

He had his own wounds.
A complicated relationship.
An absence of affection.
He told me he was loyal; committed, even
but that it was nice to feel wanted.
Nice to be reminded that he still held weight in someone’s eyes.

And I got it.
I really did.
Because I had been starving too
but not for him.

For something deeper.
Something real.
Something I thought I’d tasted once but couldn’t seem to find again.

We were two people with half healed hearts,
using each other’s words like gauze.
Wrapping each other in soft lies like:
“You’re still beautiful.”
“You still matter.”

And maybe for a moment, we did.

But I couldn’t keep doing it.
Not because it became too much
but because it became too empty.

Because no matter what he said,
his words never reached the places I needed to be touched.
Because even when he called me stunning, I still craved the voice that wasn’t his.
Because every message from him made me realize
I wasn’t healing; I was hiding.

And I’ve done enough of that.

He didn’t hurt me.
But I nearly betrayed myself staying in something that wasn’t aligned.

Because I know what I bring.
I know who I am.
I know what I’ve survived and what I’m no longer settling for.

And men who only see the surface of me
who fall for the idea of me but never earn the right to hold me
aren’t on my level anymore.

We were each other’s temporary relief.
Each other’s small escape.
Not soulmates.
Not lovers.
Not even real friends by the end of it.

Just two people trying to feel something
from someone we didn’t truly want.

He didn’t break me.
But he showed me just how much I’ve grown.
Because I used to cling to that kind of attention.

Now?….
I walk away from it; with clarity and no apology

The Familiar That Taught Me When to Walk Away

Tyler was the familiar.
The man I said “yes” to even when my soul whispered “no.”
Not because I believed in forever
but because I believed I had to.

I had a baby with him.
I married him.
Not because it felt right in my bones, but because it felt required.
Expected.
Like the next logical step in a life I had already surrendered to.

I didn’t marry him for me.
I married him for him.

And I was never going to leave.

That’s the truth.
I would’ve stayed.
Endured.
Made myself smaller.
Held my breath for years if it meant keeping the peace.

Even when he fed his ego through the attention of other women.
Even when I found the truth in his phone and buried mine.

I had already accepted a life where I was second place in my own marriage.

But then Dean came along.

And that’s when everything I thought I could tolerate… shifted.

He didn’t just flirt.
He didn’t just say the right things.

He saw me.

He saw the tired in my eyes.
The ache in my voice.
The way I clung to strength because I didn’t have a safe place to fall.

I believed he was what I needed.
That he would be gentle with the parts of me Tyler had stepped over.
That he would protect what Tyler had ignored.

Dean didn’t save me.
But he cracked me wide open.

He showed me that I was still capable of feeling again.
That I still had softness left in me.
That someone outside of my empty marriage could make me feel wanted.

And it was that flicker of life that made me finally see:
I was dying inside something I called love.

I didn’t leave Tyler because I was strong.

I left because I realized I was still alive.

Dean was the spark.
The unexpected reminder that I deserved more than emotional starvation.
He wasn’t the answer.
But he was the awakening.

And for that, I can’t hate him.
Because without him,
I might still be there.

Still performing love in a relationship that had long stopped seeing me.

I stayed with Tyler far past the expiration date.

Not because I believed it was working
but because I thought staying made me loyal.
Made me a good woman.
A good mom.
A good wife.

But the truth is:
Being good shouldn’t mean disappearing.

And that’s what I had done.
Disappeared.
Beneath his neglect.
Beneath his excuses.
Beneath my own denial.

I don’t hate Tyler.

But I mourn the version of me who begged him to change.
Who broke her own heart trying to keep a family together.
Who said “yes” to a wedding when her spirit screamed “no.”

I loved him.
But I loved the idea of us more than the reality.
And that idea no longer holds me hostage.

I walked away not just from Tyler, but from every version of myself that accepted half love as enough.

And now?

I am not waiting for someone else to show me my worth.
Not a husband.
Not a savior.
Not even a breath of fresh air dressed in promises.

Because I am learning to breathe on my own.

He was the life I thought I was supposed to build.
But I am the woman I was always meant to become.

The Quiet Hunger That Taught Me to Feed Myself

Some people don’t leave.
They fade.
Like breath on glass, visible just long enough to make you believe it was real.
Then gone.

Daniel was never the loud storm.
He was the quiet hunger.
The “maybe.”
The echo of “what if” that made me question if I’d made it all up in my head.

He never gave me promises.
Not really.
Just possibilities.
Just enough softness to keep me looking his way.

And I did.

I watched for his name to appear, hoping it would mean something.
I let his silences speak louder than his words, convincing myself they were messages.
I kept track of the ways he hovered at the edges of my world without ever stepping in.

I mistook observation for care.
Attention for affection.
Lust for intention.

He never told me what I meant to him.
And that was the cruelest part.

Because I wasn’t asking for devotion.
Just clarity.

He said we weren’t a match, that what we shared didn’t feel right for him.
But his actions always contradicted his words, circling back when it suited him.

He said he wasn’t looking for a relationship.
But his actions and the way he touched me said something else.
The way he held me like he didn’t want to let go,
the way his hands traced me like I was something soft he didn’t deserve,
the way he came back again and again to taste the comfort he swore he wasn’t ready for.

It was the contradiction that kept me tethered, kept me hoping,
made me feel like I was asking for too much when he was the one asking me to stay without ever saying the words.
It made me feel like I was too honest, too open, too ready for something he only wanted in fragments,
while he hovered with half interest and half effort.

The truth?
I wasn’t too much.
He was too little.

But I didn’t believe that then.
So I shrank myself to fit into the mold of someone easy to keep around.

Daniel was the mirror I didn’t know I needed.

He never gaslit me outright.
But he left me in limbo.
So I did it to myself.

I questioned if I was worthy enough, vibrant enough, wanted enough, quiet enough to be kept.

I broke myself open just to hear the echo of my own worth.
And when no one echoed back, I told myself it was my fault.

But Daniel wasn’t a villain.
He was just… unavailable.

Emotionally.
Energetically.
Maybe even sexually.

He wanted the chase.
The flirtation.
The illusion of something without the weight of responsibility.

And I became that illusion.
The one he could dip into and out of like a habit.
A convenience.
A person who wouldn’t ask too many questions.
Who would still be there even after the last text went unanswered.

But I broke that cycle.

I stopped texting.
Stopped reaching.
Stopped explaining my worth to someone who had already decided not to see it.

I still wonder if he checks.
If he notices.
If he thinks about me at the red lights or when the bed is cold.

But that’s not love.
That’s the trauma response of someone who gave too much and got too little.
Someone who craved consistency and settled for glimpses.

Daniel taught me how to stop begging to be loved.

He taught me that desire without direction is just confusion.
That someone wanting you isn’t enough if they only want you on their terms.
That silence, too, is an answer.
And that no answer is a boundary I now refuse to cross again.

He didn’t hurt me with words.
He hurt me with absence.
With apathy.
With the way he treated me like a fire escape; only to be used in emergencies, never to be chosen.

Daniel didn’t break my heart.
He starved it.
And in that starvation, I learned how to feed myself.
Piece by piece.
Breath by breath.

The Storm That Taught Me Depth Has Limits

There are people who arrive not as a promise, but as a warning written in stars you still wish on.

Dean wasn’t soft.
Not at first.
Not ever, really.
But there was something in the way his chaos mirrored mine.
Like two broken compasses spinning toward one another,
not to find home
but to burn down every place we once called safe.

He came to me during the unraveling.
Not just of my marriage, but of myself.
He didn’t save me. He didn’t even try.
He simply saw me; raw, wounded, wide open, and I mistook that sight for sanctuary.

There was no gentle beginning.
No gradual fall.
It was wildfire.
Three a.m. confessions and late night messages soaked in vulnerability we didn’t know how to hold.

He asked for my truth.
I gave it to him, bleeding.
He said I was the calm in his storm,
but I never realized he was the storm I kept trying to survive.

I would’ve written him a thousand poems if it meant he’d stay still long enough to read one.
But he was always halfway gone
one foot in, one eye elsewhere, one hand barely touching mine.

Still, I stayed.
I built altars in my chest just to worship the version of him I imagined.
The version that would choose me; if only he weren’t scared, if only he weren’t married, if only the timing was better, if only the universe wasn’t cruel.

But the truth was: he never had to choose me.
I had already chosen him.
And in doing so, I forgot to choose myself.

He made me feel everything and nothing in the same breath.

One moment, I was his clarity.
The next, I was a secret too sacred to speak aloud.

He wanted me in the shadows.
In stolen hours and muted tones.
In glances that felt like lifetimes, and lifetimes that never felt like enough.

There was a Saturday sunset in Kansas where he sang to me
& for a moment, it felt like the world paused just to let us breathe.

But even that moment was borrowed.

And we both knew it.

I became poetry because of him.

Not the kind that lives in journals.
The kind that bleeds
in car rides, in voice notes unsent, in tattoos inked just to remember how it felt to ache that much and still call it beautiful.

I never got a clean goodbye.
Just a fading.
A slow retreat into silence where the louder I screamed internally, the quieter he became.

He didn’t leave with anger.
He left with indifference.
And that, I think, hurt more than anything.

Because I would rather be hated by him than erased.

But here’s what I know now:

Dean was never meant to stay.
He was a mirror.
A reflection of what I was craving, depth, intimacy, understanding; held in the hands of someone who didn’t have the capacity to give it.

He was the lesson in disguise.
The one that told me:
“Depth doesn’t mean destiny.”
Just because someone touches your soul doesn’t mean they’re meant to keep it.

I forgive myself for loving him.

For falling for the potential, the almost, the ache.
For believing that my softness could make him stay.
For thinking I had to shrink to be loved quietly instead of being held loudly.

But most of all, I forgive myself for waiting
for closure, for a message, for anything.

Because the closure was never going to come from him.
It had to come from me.
From burning the shrine.
From letting go of the fantasy.
From saying, “This hurt. But I survived it. And I am still worthy.”

He may never know what he meant to me.
And that’s okay.
Because I know what he meant.

He was the storm that stripped me bare.
The silence that taught me to scream inward.
The ghost that made me write again.

And though I would never choose that kind of ache again,
I carry it like a scar, visible only to the parts of me still healing.

Dean didn’t love me.
But because of him,
I learned to love myself enough to stop asking for scraps.

Waking up next to him felt like waking inside a spell I hadn’t meant to fall under.
I’d spent years waking beside a man I barely recognized
just skin and obligation.
But this… this was different.
He was fire and gravity.
A storm curled beneath my ribs.

From the moment my eyes met his that morning,
I knew the second day would break me in ways the first never dared.

It was all a blur, a fever dream.
Tension, sharp words, tempers flaring in silence.
We didn’t understand what we were walking into
but our bodies did.

That day, we didn’t just make love.
We unmade each other.
Every kiss felt like a threat and a promise.
Every touch, a battle between control and surrender.
And I lost; beautifully, completely.

He took me.

Not like the world teaches us to be taken.
But like I asked for it without speaking.
Like my body was made to answer only to him.

He pushed me open with his hands and his hunger.
He controlled the rhythm, the pressure, the pace.
The squeeze of his hand around my throat,
the sting of his palm across my cheek
he loved it. I loved it.

Every time he struck me, there was a hunger in his eyes
not rage, not cruelty, but something feral.
Something ancient.
His blue eyes darkened into something unfamiliar
not the man I met, but the man who knew what it meant to ruin me.
And the more he took, the more I gave.
The more he consumed me, the more I craved it.

He spit in my mouth over and over, and I swallowed it like water, like worship.
I didn’t flinch. I didn’t resist.
I welcomed it; because in that moment, I was his.
And nothing had ever felt more right.

Every thrust came with power, like he needed me to feel
just how strong he was,
just how much control he had,
and how much of it I would surrender willingly.

That day, he didn’t just fuck me.
He claimed me.
Body, mind, and every broken corner of my soul.

And I gave it to him.
All of it.
Not because I had to.
But because no one had ever touched me like they meant it.

He didn’t just want to make me feel good.
He wanted to undo me.
To see what I’d become when there were no walls left to climb.

And I let him.

That was the day I fell deeper.
That was the day I broke wide open.
That was the day he ruined me completely
and I loved every second of it.

Some days ache more than others. Today felt like a bruise I couldn’t stop pressing.

I kept thinking about the way he used to pull me close, like he knew exactly where I belonged, until he didn’t. The quiet moments echo louder now, and the space where he used to be feels like a wound that never clots. I don’t want him back, not in the way people mean. I don’t want the confusion, the pulling away, the second guessing of my worth. But there’s still a flicker, a memory that makes me crave the comfort of how his touch made me feel wanted, just long enough to feel real.

This was like chasing smoke, never meant to be held, only felt. It’s about what felt real in between the silence and the slipping away. The kind of physical gravity that doesn’t ask for forever but still makes you feel like you matter; at least for a moment. But in reality, I only really wanted him in my bed, but never in my future.

And maybe that’s the part that hurts the most. That I was never asking for everything. Just a little more than nothing.

He couldn’t give me that.

And yet I still sit here, in the echo of what we were, wanting the warmth of something that was never built to last.

Maybe this is what growth looks like: wanting him, but not chasing him. Missing him, but not breaking for him. Craving him, but choosing me.

Every. Single. Time.

Today’s been just a little bit harder than most.

Some days, the silence feels like background noise. Today, it’s the only sound I hear. We didn’t end in fire, not some dramatic explosion of words or closure. It was more like a light flicker that no one bothered to fix. Like a page left half written, the pen just dropped mid sentence.

He ended it. Even though something was felt. Even though it could’ve become something more, he walked away like it never stood a chance

But here’s the thing: I still miss him.

I know it doesn’t make me weak. It just makes me real. Because what I gave wasn’t fake, or casual, or empty. It came from the softest parts of me, the parts that believed in what we could’ve been.

The connection mattered to me. Even if he handled it like it didn’t.

I miss the way he looked at me when he was fully there. The way his touch made everything in my mind go quiet. The way, for a brief moment, I felt wanted, even if it was only halfway. I miss the version of us that lived in my head, the one I thought we could become if he had just met me halfway.

But grief isn’t always about what we lost. Sometimes it’s about what never got to grow.

And here’s what I’ve had to remind myself:

Missing someone isn’t a good enough reason to reopen the wounds they left behind.

Some days, I cry. Some nights, I write. I let the ache burn itself out.
But I’m learning not to confuse the longing with need.

Because deep down, I know I wasn’t missing him , I was missing the version of him I hoped was real.

The version I got? He wasn’t capable of holding me the way I need to be held.

And maybe one day, he’ll realize that.
But by then?

I might not miss him at all. Not in this aching, hollow way. Just in the quiet way that reminds me how far I’ve come.

There’s a difference between a man who sees your fire and one who tries to contain it.
I’ve known both.

Daniel managed me.
He wanted my lips, my skin, my silence.
He called it incompatibility, but what he really meant was, I wouldn’t bend for him.
I didn’t shrink when he expected it. I didn’t soften when he needed to feel bigger.
So he labeled my confidence a flaw. My passion? A problem.
He mistook my boldness for disrespect, and my honesty for offense.

He didn’t want to know me, he wanted to shape me.

But Dean…
Dean matched me.

He never asked me to dim.
He didn’t flinch at my fire, he leaned in.
There were moments with him that felt like standing in front of a mirror that spoke back.
He could match my sarcasm, my depth, my chaos.
He saw the sharp edges and didn’t try to dull them
he traced them, kissed them, respected them.

Even when he pulled away, it was never because I was too much.
It was because life was too loud around him.
Because he was battling things I couldn’t reach.
But not once did he make me feel like I needed to disappear to be loved.

And that’s the kind of difference that stays with you.

Because once you’ve been matched,
you can never be managed again.

It was always intense between us, fast, full bodied, and burning from the inside out.
We joked about tattoos once, somewhere between playful teasing and something more serious.
We talked about his, what they meant.
We even talked about getting one together, half kidding, half testing the waters of forever.
And I remember asking him one day, maybe half laughing:
“Would you ever get my name tattooed on you?”

I didn’t expect him to say yes.
But he did.
Without hesitation.

I didn’t believe him at first.
I didn’t think people actually did that, especially not after just a few months.
But then one day, late April, he sent me a picture.
His hand.
His ring finger.
And there it was.
My name, tattooed into him.
Just beneath the skin.
Permanent.

It made me feel chosen.
Seen.
Like I wasn’t just a secret in his phone or a voice after midnight, I was someone he wanted to wear.
It felt like a declaration, not in words, but in ink.
Something sacred. Something real.
A piece of him that would carry me forever.

That finger; the ring finger.
He never wore a wedding ring, so I didn’t think much of it then.
I didn’t know.
Not yet.
Not that he was married.
Not that there was already someone who believed that space on his hand belonged to her.

And when I think about it now…
To be his wife, to look at his hand and see another woman’s name etched into that place
I can’t imagine the kind of pain that would cause.
It would’ve broken me.

But at the time, I didn’t know.
I was just a woman in love with a man who said he’d carry me with him.
And that ink felt like proof.

We built a dream with words, but reality has a way of showing up uninvited, quiet, cold, and true.

For a while, it felt like we were building something real; quietly, carefully, and full of hope.

In those first three months, we talked about everything.
Not just in passing, not just flirting; we made plans.
Big ones.

We imagined raising our kids on a piece of land out in the country; wide open space, the kind where little feet could run free without fences.
We talked about saving to build a house there one day.
One with a wraparound porch, a kitchen full of laughter, and a table big enough to seat a blended family that didn’t feel broken, just beautifully complex.

He said he wanted to come home from a long day of work and walk through the door to find me and the kids; mine and his, all waiting for him.
He wanted dinners at the table, messy mornings, sleepy hugs on the couch.
We were dreaming out loud, and it felt good. It felt real.
It felt like healing in motion.

But dreams have a way of brushing up against reality.

And reality came quietly; just after midnight.
I remember sitting there, heart in my throat, feeling like something was off.
There was this weight in the air between us that I couldn’t name yet.

So I said it: “I feel like you’re hiding something. There’s more to you, you’re holding back.”
He sighed, deeply. Looked at me through the screen, eyes heavy.
And then he said what I’d been afraid to hear: “There’s something I need to tell you. I’ve been scared to say it.”

I told him, “Just tell me. I want all the cards on the table before we move any further.”

That’s when he told me, not just about his past, but the weight he still carries from it. He had a record. A mistake that altered the course of his life. And even though time has passed, I could still hear the shame in his voice when he spoke about it. It wasn’t just a story… it was a scar he hadn’t fully made peace with.

I won’t lie, it scared me.
Not because I thought he was dangerous, but because it reminded me that there was still so much I didn’t know about him.
That love can grow even when understanding hasn’t caught up yet.

We hung up the call.
I needed a minute. Maybe more.
But I called him back. I couldn’t just walk away.

He told me he understood if I wanted to cut ties completely.
He said he wouldn’t blame me.

But it wasn’t that easy.

Because by then… I had already fallen.
Not just for his charm or the way he made me feel seen,
But for the future we had started sketching in midnight conversations.
For the softness beneath his silence.
For the man who made me believe in possibility again.

At first, we barely spoke on the phone.
I didn’t question it too much.
Maybe because I had my own secrets, my own marriage quietly unraveling behind closed doors.
Maybe because part of me didn’t want to look too closely at the silences between us.

Now I know it was because he was hiding something:
Her.
The wife I didn’t know existed yet.

But back then, the space between our conversations felt more like distance than deceit.
We lived hours apart, and I had my own limitations, too.
My time wasn’t fully mine.
My heart wasn’t fully free.

Still, I reached a breaking point.

I told him, if all you can give me are messages on a screen, I don’t want it. If this is going to be anything real, I need your voice. I need more.

And to his credit, he gave it to me.
He made time; morning, noon, and night.
He found little pockets in his day and gave them to me.
And I gave him mine, even if I had to sneak away from a life I hadn’t fully walked out of.

Some nights, we’d talk for hours. I’d lie in the dark, pretending to be asleep, whispering just to hear his voice.
There was something in the way he spoke to me; soft, present, like I was already his.
And maybe part of me already was.

He knew I was married.
I told him early on, I didn’t hide that.
I was honest about where I was in life, about the mess I was in, about the way I was slowly detaching from someone I had once loved deeply.
I gave him my truth.
I just didn’t know he hadn’t given me all of his.

He knew I wasn’t ready for divorce.
Not because I still believed in us, but because walking away felt like tearing apart something I had once built with hope, our home, our family, our son.
He was so little then, still learning the world, and I didn’t know what it would mean to raise him between two separate lives.

And maybe, deep down, I still wanted to say I tried.
That I didn’t just run when things got hard, even though my heart had been running for months.

I knew what I was doing wasn’t right.
I should’ve ended things with my husband the moment I realized I was seeking something outside of us.
I should’ve walked away with clarity instead of lingering in emotional limbo.
But I couldn’t. Not yet.
Not until I knew what this new connection would become.
Not until I knew if the feelings I had for this man, this unknown, magnetic force, were fleeting… or the beginning of something I could actually build a future with.

And truthfully, I didn’t know what we were.
This new man… unexpected, intense, emotionally disarming; felt like possibility. Like breath after drowning.
But he was also a kind of unknown I wasn’t used to, mysterious, guarded, yet magnetic in a way that made it hard to turn away.
A man I barely knew, yet felt deeply pulled to.
Someone I wanted to trust, even when his edges stayed just out of reach.

So I stayed in between.
One foot grounded in the life I’d built… and the other stepping into something I couldn’t yet name.