This year didn’t just bruise me
it hollowed me out in ways I never saw coming.
Not because of a man.
Not because of another woman.
Not because of betrayal or endings.
But because of my children.
Because of the quiet dream I held for them
a dream of a home that stayed whole,
a mother and father under the same roof,
a little world where they never had to learn what leaving feels like.
I’m not ashamed to say it:
when I learned that another baby was coming into the picture; twins, a whole new family forming somewhere else
it wasn’t jealousy that hit me.
It wasn’t longing.
It wasn’t wanting him back.
It was the grief of a mother who looked at her son
and realized he would never have the storybook childhood she prayed over him.
It was that sharp, breath stealing ache of realizing:
my baby won’t have the family I fought so hard to keep together for him.
I felt that same ache years ago with my daughter
that guilt, that heaviness,
that whisper in the back of my mind that said,
“You failed her.”
And when life repeated itself
when I realized my son wouldn’t have that perfect home either
the guilt came back sharper, louder, crueler.
I felt like I failed twice.
Even though deep down I know I didn’t.
Even though I gave everything I had.
Even though I stayed through storms
and left only when it was the only way to save myself.
But a mother’s heart doesn’t listen to logic.
It listens to the dreams she built in silence.
This year, I grieved a version of motherhood I never got to live.
Not because I wasn’t enough
but because I was never meant to shrink myself into a home that wasn’t safe for my soul.
And while I was grieving all that,
life kept throwing people at me
people who came and went like passing storms,
people who touched my life without ever choosing to stay,
people who left me drained, confused, or wondering why I was never the one anyone held onto fully.
It felt like every time I tried to stand up, another wave hit.
Every time I tried to open my heart, someone walked out.
Every time I tried to hope, life asked me to let go again.
But in the middle of all the heartbreaks,
the goodbyes,
the almosts and never were’s,
something unexpected happened:
I grew.
I grew into a mother who loves fiercely,
even while healing wounds no one sees.
I grew into a woman who can hold both guilt and grace in the same hands
and still show up for her children with a full heart.
I grew into someone who learned that
you don’t have to give your kids a perfect home
you just have to give them a peaceful one.
And that peace…
came from walking away from everything that hurt me.
Now, standing at the edge of a new year,
I feel exhausted
not weak, just worn
from carrying dreams that were never mine to keep.
But I also feel ready.
Ready in a way I haven’t felt in years.
This year broke me open.
Next year, I bloom
for me,
for my daughter,
for my son,
for the version of us that deserves the peace we fought for.
Category: Uncategorized
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There’s a quiet in him that unsettles me. A silence that sits heavy when his eyes are on me, when his hands steady me without asking, when his voice softens for a fraction of a second before it hardens again. He is all edges and all care at once, marking me up with bruises, biting into my skin, dragging a marker across my flesh to write property in messy black letters. It should feel like ownership alone, but it feels like something else too, something harder to admit. Something almost tender.
He takes me where he wants me, when he wants me, and I let him. My body bends for him, opens for him, submits because that’s what we both crave: my surrender, his control. And yet, I resist in fragments. I tease with hesitation, I test with words I don’t mean, because I want him to push harder, claim deeper, remind me with every thrust that he owns me even when I play at being defiant.********
The garage was cold, concrete beneath my back, his weight pressing me down. The air smelled of oil and dust, and still all I could breathe was him. He moved inside me, rough and relentless, his voice cutting through the rhythm: “Tell me you’re mine.”
I smirked, biting down the answer he wanted. “Yeah,” I whispered, “until I’m not.”
His eyes snapped fire into me, his grip tightening, his body driving deeper as if to bury the words before they could take root. “No,” he growled, low and certain, “You will always fucking be MINE.”
And in that moment, I was. Completely.
I said it to provoke him, not because I believed otherwise. I wanted the punishment, the correction, the sharp edge of his dominance cutting through my teasing. And I got it; his pace brutal, his hand gripping harder, his voice spitting possession into my mouth until there was no space left for doubt. I wanted him to remind me. I wanted him to prove it. And he did.
He tells me how much of a good girl I when I obey, when I take him the way he wants, when I break open and beg for more. Those two words undo me more than any bruise, more than any mark of ink across my skin. Because they are praise and command in the same breath, softness and ownership tangled so tightly that I can’t separate them.
It’s not just sex. It’s never just sex. It’s the push and pull, the guarded silences, the way we both hold back pieces of ourselves while giving everything in the moment. It’s the fear of too much, too little, not enough. It’s me questioning what it means, him refusing to answer in words but answering with the way he takes me, the way he won’t let me slip away even when I tease at leaving.
I am his. I know it. And he knows it too. That’s why he marks me, bruises me, makes me whisper confessions until my throat is raw. That’s why he snaps back when I push him, why he growls promises into my ear that sound more like threats but feel like devotion.
We’re both guarded. We’re both afraid. But when his body pins mine, when his voice tells me I’ll never belong to anyone else, when his eyes soften just enough to betray the care he hides; none of that fear matters. There’s no past, no future, only this moment.
And in this moment, my body is his. Always. Even when I pretend It’s not. -
There’s a hunger I can’t dress up or soften, the kind that sits heavy in the chest until it claws its way out. It isn’t about love, not the kind people wrap in ribbons and promises. This was something darker, rawer; an intensity that burned so bright it nearly swallowed me whole.
He and I were never gentle. The connection wasn’t sweet; it was sharp, jagged, electric. Every glance was a dare, every touch a battle between control and surrender. It wasn’t about being held, it was about being consumed. I wanted him to strip me down to nothing and build me back up again with hands that knew how to push, to test, to claim. And he wanted me pliant, open, willing to fall into the fire he kept barely leashed beneath his skin.
There was power in it. Not weakness, not submission in the way the world might define it, but the power of choosing to yield when every muscle in my body ached to resist. The way I let myself break for him, not because I was fragile, but because I was strong enough to want more than soft edges. Strong enough to need the sharp bite of intensity, the rush of losing myself in the danger of being wanted that much.
He wasn’t here to make me bloom. He wasn’t planting seeds or nurturing me with soft hands and gentle words. No, he was here to ruin me. And the truth is, I wanted that ruin. I invited it. I accepted the way he tore into me, the way he unraveled my composure and left me bare. It wasn’t destruction I feared; it was the kind of ruin that feels like revelation, the kind that leaves you gasping, trembling, and more alive than you’ve ever been. I didn’t resist. I gave myself to it, craving the obliteration only he could bring.
It wasn’t love, but it didn’t need to be. Love has rules, conditions, a steady heartbeat. This was something else entirely; a collision, a storm. Something that left marks on my skin and deeper ones in the places no one can see. Something that made me tremble and ache, that made my lungs burn for air and my pulse race against itself. It stole the steadiness from my legs and replaced it with fire, a shaking that was equal parts fear and need. It was intensity that lived in my bloodstream, in the raw edges of breath and the echo of his presence long after he was gone.
The truth is: I crave the darkness. The surrender that feels like victory. The heat that blurs the line between pain and pleasure, leaving me undone, ruined, but begging for more. He and I touched that edge together; a space where thought evaporates and only instinct survives; and even without love, it left an imprint I can’t erase. A hunger I’ll always know by name, even if I never speak it aloud. -
He doesn’t ask. He never has. He takes. My body bends, breaks, opens, and I let it, because that’s the ritual we’ve carved out of each other. His dominance is not a question, it’s a command, and my only language in those moments is surrender.
His spit lands on my face, warm and humiliating, and before it even slides down my cheek he drags his tongue across it, licking it away, reclaiming me with every stroke. Tears spill from my eyes as his cock forces its way down my throat, my mouth stretched wide, my breath stolen. He tastes the tears too, mixing them with spit and sweat like it’s communion, like it’s proof I belong here, beneath him, begging for air and for him in the same breath.
I resist, sometimes. My body thrashes lightly, a push of my hands against his chest, a twist of my shoulders as if I could deny him. But it’s never real. It’s the performance we both crave, the dance of defiance that makes my eventual collapse even sweeter. He never allows refusal. He pins me, he holds me, he keeps pressing until my fight melts into a moan, until my body betrays me with the truth: I want this. I want him.
When he takes me from behind, his grip bruises my hips until I ache from it. He doesn’t ease me in, he drives himself deep, ripping through the hesitation in my muscles, forcing me to accept him whole. I shudder, gasp, push back against him, my body stretched to its limit, & still I give. Because I crave the burn of him inside me, the sting of him pushing past my edges. He fucks me until the line between pleasure and pain is gone, until I can’t tell whether I’m begging him to stop or begging for more.
He marks me in every way he can. Teeth sinking into my neck, leaving purple constellations across my skin. Fingertips digging hard enough to bloom bruises down my thighs and ass. And then the ink; the marker he drags across my skin in messy, possessive scrawls: property. His property. His body. His pussy. His ass. Words written into me like scripture, as if I need the reminder, as if the bruises weren’t enough proof.
He makes me say it, too. “Who does this pussy belong to?” And I whisper the answer he demands, even when my throat is ragged from screaming it. His. My voice breaks but he doesn’t stop until I give him every last ounce of my confession. Until he hears me beg and surrender and promise again that I am his to take, in every way he wants.
Every moment is choreographed chaos. The spit, the tears, the bruises, the marker, they aren’t accidents, they’re scripture. His hands, his cock, his voice are the verses; my submission is the chorus. He takes me hard, rough, unrelenting, and I answer with the only truth I know: I let him. I want him to.
There is no gentleness in us. No soft romance. This is darker, heavier, holier in its own savage way. His dominance is my prayer, and my obedience is his worship. I don’t question it. I don’t resist beyond the tease of resistance he loves. I give him every part of me, over and over again.
He takes me. Every time. In every way. & I crave it, like oxygen.
-
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.
-
There was a time I would’ve held the weight of his truth in the palms of my hands without flinching.
A time when love, in all its raw, unedited form, pulsed between us like something holy.
I made room…. wide, forgiving, honest room, for the deepest parts of him,
even the parts he couldn’t yet name.
He didn’t have to hide.
Not with me.
Not in the quiet between our conversations,
not in the curve of my neck when he lay beside me,
not in the way I kissed the places he didn’t even know he needed to be seen.
I whispered with my actions,
“You’re safe here.”
And still, he ran.
He carried his curiosities in silence, tucked beneath the surface of our intimacy,
like contraband emotion.
But I would’ve held it gently.
I would’ve stayed, not in spite of what he revealed, but because he finally did.
Because truth is beautiful when it’s brave.
And I craved that kind of bravery from him.
But he wasn’t ready.
He chose comfort over courage.
He chose a lie wrapped in convenience,
over a love that dared him to be known.
And now…
Now I’ve made peace with the silence.
The unanswered questions.
The realization that I was never the problem
Just the mirror he couldn’t look into for too long.
Yes, I still feel that tug,
that quiet hum of what if he comes back.
But it’s no longer a wish for him to return as he was.
It’s a whisper that says,
“If you come back, come real. Or don’t come at all.”
I am not waiting.
Not anymore.
I’ve built myself a life he wouldn’t recognize
one built from the honesty he couldn’t give me.
And while a conversation might still be owed,
my worth no longer hangs in the balance of his voice.
I was always enough.
Even when he couldn’t see it.
Even when he couldn’t say it. -
“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 loved him in a way I couldn’t explain out loud.
Not because I didn’t have the words.
God, I had all the words.
But because none of them ever reached him.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. -
I’ve spent so many nights tracing the edges of my own thoughts, mapping the labyrinth of my heart by moonlight, wondering which corridors still held echoes of a love I once believed could heal me. I catalogued every silence, every breadcrumb, every shard of doubt he left in my path, convinced that if I pieced it all together, the picture would finally make sense. But last night, as I watched the flames dance in my mind’s eye, I realized something both terrifying and exhilarating: the person I could only become would have to rise from the ashes of who I was.
I. The Hunger for Unfinished Stories
I have always been drawn to half-written novels: to the chapters that end on a question mark, to the voices suspended in mid-confession, to the lingering “what-ifs” that hum in the space between two souls. I thought it was romance; that ache, that craving for something unresolved. In truth, it was my own longing for purpose. If I could fix the unfixable, if I could draw someone else’s pain into the safety of my arms, then maybe I could prove I mattered.
But no one ever asked me what I needed. I poured love into cracked vessels, convinced that my devotion could seal every fracture. I chased illusions down gravel roads and through deserted parking lots, whispering prayers that he would remember my name. And when the echo of my own voice was all that remained, I realized I’d been running after smoke.
II. The Barbed Wire of My Own Making
My body is a map of battles fought and scars earned. I ink devotion and defiance across my skin, as if each tattoo were a lullaby for the parts of me that refused to be forgotten. But I built walls lined with barbed wire, beautiful, yes, but still barbed. I tested every hand that reached for me: “Can you handle this fire? Can you hold these depths?” And when they faltered, I branded their retreat as rejection rather than self-preservation.
I conflated my worth with their endurance. I thought, if they stay, I’m enough. If they leave, I’m not. But the truth is simpler and harsher: they left because they couldn’t carry the weight of my truth, not because my truth was too much, but because they were never meant to bear it. The fault was not in my depth, but in my belief that depth required an audience.
III. A Mirror of Shattered Glass
For so long, I held my reflection up to their eyes. I asked, “Do you see me?” and waited for an answer that never came. I catalogued every glance, every scroll past, every ghosted read receipt as if I were deciphering code. I convinced myself the signals were out there, that meaning dripped from every profile view, every car passed in the night.
But a mirror that only shows us fragments isn’t a mirror; it’s a broken promise. I was chasing the sensation of being wanted, not the truth of being loved. I wanted to feel special again, felt alive in that electric moment when someone finally sees you.
IV. The Ritual of Burning
Last night, I lit a candle for every piece of myself I’d offered to the wrong people: the midnight whispers, the raw confessions, the months spent waiting by my front door. And as the wax pooled and the wick curled, I felt something shift. I whispered to the darkness, “I’m done.” Each flicker of flame was a release, of expectation, of regret, of every tiny hope I’d clung to.
Because here’s the raw, unquiet truth: the only way to truly become is to burn away the parts of yourself that no longer serve you. You must let your illusions catch fire so the real embers of your soul can glow. You must allow the ache of old losses to purify you, rather than define you.
V. The Becoming Era
I stand now at the cusp of something fierce and uncharted… a becoming era. I am no longer the girl who waits for someone else to ignite her spark. I am the flame, alive on her own terms. I am the poem, unsilenced. I am the phoenix, learning to trust gravity, learning that the fall doesn’t have to destroy me; it can teach me to rise.
The person I could only become would emerge from this crucible of loss and longing. Who I am now, forged in flame, is someone who honors her own hunger without sacrificing her worth. Someone who inks her story in bold strokes, not waiting for an editor’s approval. Someone who holds herself, a fierce, tender territory; and refuses to barter her peace for crumbs of attention.
VI. What Remains, What Blooms
In the ashes of my old self, I find a garden.
The tender shoots of self respect.
The wild blooms of creative obsession.
The roots of boundaries that nourish rather than constrict.I feel their absence like an open wound, but not as a void I must fill. Instead, it’s a space I can plant seeds of my own making. I will cultivate joy, not as an antidote to pain, but as a companion to it. I will write my truths in long, unbroken lines, no longer afraid of what a full confession might reveal.
VII. An Invitation to Myself
So here’s my vow to me:
- I will light my own candles when the world grows dark.
- I will unlearn the language of chasing and learn the dialect of presence.
- I will decline projects that ask me to fix others before fixing myself.
- I will feed my fire with my own breath, not with someone else’s attention.
If this is the era of becoming, then let it be written in soot and flame. Let it be sung in the quiet moments when I choose silence over pleading, peace over proving, freedom over fear.
I was never meant to be forgotten. I was meant to be unforgettable; first to myself, then to anyone who has the courage to witness my full light. And now, as the last candle guttered out, I felt a calm settle over me: a knowing that I am enough, just as I am, and that the only story I need to finish is my own.
-
Three weeks ago, I was still crying over a man who hadn’t chosen me. Still aching. Still yearning. Still loving him deeply, despite everything he didn’t give. Despite all the promises that never showed up. Despite all the ways he made me feel like I wasn’t enough to choose.
It’s wild how fast things shift.
Maybe it wasn’t really three weeks. Maybe it started unraveling in January; when the rollercoaster picked up again. The push, the pull. I love you, but I can’t choose you. I want forever with you; but I can’t walk away from what I’ve already built. I’ll find a way to make space for you, but not now. I’ll be honest, but only when it benefits me. I’ll keep you close, but only in the dark. I’ll let go completely; when it’s finally too late.
And then silence. Cold, cutting silence. Like I never mattered at all.
That kind of confusion does something to a person. It breaks your trust. It makes you question your worth. Because all you want, in the end, is to be chosen.
And maybe that’s why I’m here now; accepting the bare minimum from someone else. Letting Daniel choose me in his own quiet, limited way. It’s not fair to me, I know that. It says something about where I am with myself right now. But I’m not oblivious.
I’m just tired of begging to feel wanted.
Right now… I want to feel chosen, even if it’s not perfect. Even if it’s not forever. Even if it’s just for now.
Because after being with someone for 10 years, holding everything together, being the one who carried the weight, who stepped into every role just to keep things from falling apart, I don’t want to carry anymore. I don’t want to beg anymore. I just want to live.
I want to take my babies by the hand and show them skies we’ve never seen. I want to find unfamiliar cities and let the wind tell us where to go. I want to leave pieces of myself in new places, collect memories like bruises and ink, marks that say I was here. I want to feel the sun in other zip codes, feel the thrill of saying yes without explaining why. I want to stretch. To breathe deeper. To reclaim the pieces of me that I buried for someone else’s comfort. I want to become art again; unfiltered, undone, and unapologetically mine.
Because I couldn’t have that before. I was tied down to someone who claimed to love me but never truly appreciated me. And then I found someone who let me be soft… but controlled me in other ways. And I let him, because I wanted to feel like a woman again. But now I know… that wasn’t softness. That wasn’t love.
That was manipulation dressed as leadership. That was not the womanhood I was meant to walk in.
I thought he was going to lead, I believed him when he said he loved me, when he spoke about forever like it was already ours. But in the end, he walked away, leaving me with empty promises of everything he swore he’d stay for.
And that’s when it happened… The pedestal broke. I stopped romanticizing the version of him I’d created in my mind. I stopped building a future that was never really being built. I finally started seeing the truth: That it’s not going to happen. Not now. Maybe not ever.
And for the first time… I’m okay with that.
I’m learning to stop controlling the future. To stop trying to hold the steering wheel with shaking hands and white knuckles. I’m learning to live for the now.
And right now… Daniel is the moment I’m allowing myself to feel without expectation
He’s not on a pedestal. He’s exactly where he stands. And maybe it won’t last. Maybe it’s not deep. Maybe it’s not what I need long-term.
I want to exhale without planning the next inhale. I want to feel something real; even if it’s fleeting. I want to be held, desired, chosen; not for always, but for exactly who I am in this moment
Because for once, I’m not chasing what could be. I’m living in what is.
No regrets. No begging. No pretending. Just this moment. And for now… that’s enough
-
We’ve never gone anywhere together. No public dates, no coffee runs, no glimpses of us moving through the world like something real
Just private moments behind closed doors; where everything feels more raw, more real, more dangerous.And still… we keep coming back.
I’ve tried to stay away. So has he. We’ve both said “no more,” only to find ourselves tangled up again in each other’s gravity. There’s something about us that won’t let go, something that simmers beneath the surface, something that doesn’t make sense but refuses to fade.
He touches me like he’s starving for something he knows only I can give.
There’s a stillness before it begins; when he just looks at me. That look… like he knows I’m going to ruin him, and he’s already forgiven me for it. His hands roam my body like they’ve always belonged there, like the curves of my skin were drawn with his fingers in mind. He kisses my back like it’s sacred. No one’s ever done that before; kissed my back like a quiet ritual, like he didn’t just want to touch me, he wanted to worship every inch of me.
When his lips press there, we both forget how to guard ourselves. We forget this is supposed to be casual; He kisses me and touches me like I’m more than just a fuck; like I’m something he’s scared to want, but craves anyway
He caresses my face like I’m breakable, but not fragile. Like I’m something he respects. Something he wants to understand. His hands are firm, but gentle. His grip is steady, but never forceful. And the way he speaks to me… the tone of his voice.
It’s soft, but commanding.
A quiet authority that makes me want to listen; makes me want to give in.
And I do.
Without hesitationMaybe he is what I need.
Or maybe he’s just the lesson before I find it.
I just don’t know.What I do know is this; there’s a pull between us. Not one of possession or promise. Just… presence.
Being near him feels like I’m standing at the edge of something I don’t have the words for. Something that might burn me or save me or both.And whatever this is, whatever we’ve created between kisses and hesitations; it’s not love.
But it’s not just lust either.
It’s something in between.
Unspoken. Unheard of.
Hard to name and even harder to explain.
It lives in the look he gives me when he thinks I’m not watching. In the way his hands can’t stay off my skin, like they were stitched there. In the silence after we touch, when it feels like more than bodies… but never quite souls.And I know he’s not ready for more.
And truthfully, neither am I.He’s divorced. I’m divorcing. But it’s more than a status; it’s a scar.
His marriage drained him. He once told me she had no identity of her own, that she clung to him so tightly, he forgot how to breathe. He was the provider, the protector, the one who held everything together while silently unraveling himself. And when it ended, it didn’t feel like freedom. It felt like failure. Like he’d given everything and still ended up empty. So now, even with his hands on me, I can feel the fear in his silence, the kind that says don’t get too close, I don’t want to lose myself again.
And me? I stayed too long with someone who stopped choosing me long before I ever left. A slow unraveling of trust, betrayal buried in phone screens, intimacy replaced with silence. I gave and gave until there was nothing left to offer but pieces. And then, just when I thought I couldn’t feel more alone, someone else came along and lit a fire I didn’t know I still had in me. A spark I wasn’t ready for. I thought maybe it meant something… maybe it would save me.
But I wasn’t healed. I was just bleeding prettier.
The grief from one heartbreak overlapped with another, like wounds layered on top of bruises. I wasn’t just losing a husband. I was mourning a man I thought had shown me what love could feel like, only to disappear just when I started to believe it. I didn’t even have time to process the first ending before the second one gutted me.
And now… now I’m cautious.
We both are.
We move like people who have already survived something. People who know what it feels like to give too much and still not be enough. I think that’s why we don’t ask for more from each other. Not because we don’t feel it, but because we do. And feeling too much after everything we’ve lost… it’s terrifying
I’ve loved too hard before. Clung too tightly. Tried to mold people into staying when they were already halfway out the door. I’ve been intense. Overwhelming. And I’m learning… slowly… that love doesn’t have to mean losing myself.
But with Daniel…
It’s different.I don’t want to own him.
I just want to feel him.
His energy, his breath, his quiet presence.And I know he’s holding back. I feel it in the way he lingers, but doesn’t stay. The way he touches me with such intention, but won’t let his heart catch up to his hands. I don’t blame him. I get it. I’m doing the same thing.
We’re both protecting ourselves.
And yet… we keep returning.
Again and again.Maybe this won’t ever turn into love.
Maybe we’re just two broken people, temporarily stitched together by comfort, heat, and unspoken understanding.
Maybe he’s here to prepare me for something else.
But right now, in this moment…I want to stop trying to stay away.
I want to keep being around his energy.
Even if it’s borrowed.
Even if it ends.
Even if it hurts later.Because there’s something about him…
Something I can’t name.
And maybe I’m not supposed to. Maybe I’m just meant to feel it while it lasts, to live in the moments that never ask for more than now. -
I started writing to keep our memory alive.
To keep him alive.
To keep the way he made me feel; alive.In the beginning, writing was the only way I could breathe through the silence he left behind. Every word was an echo of what we once were. It was my way of holding onto something I was terrified to lose, even after it had already slipped through my fingers. And I kept writing, even when it hurt, because I thought maybe… maybe it would bring him back.
But now?
Now I find myself not needing to revisit every memory.
Not needing to relive the same nights, the same moments, the same heartbreak.
Something in me is shifting.Because somehow, I started feeling something again; for someone else.
And I didn’t expect that. I never thought I’d feel anything for anyone again, not after him.
Not after the kind of love that consumed and scorched and left ashes behind.
But here I am, caught in the ache of something new, and the echoes of something old.He wasn’t new to me; just newly awakened in the spaces left hollow. A familiar touch with unfamiliar timing, arriving when I first started to break
He makes me feel wanted, even when he doesn’t always show up.
He looks at me like I’m a familiar comfort — not a fire to burn in, but a light he’d return to again and again, Touches me like the world stops spinning when I’m under his hands.
And I know it’s not love; not yet, maybe not ever.
But it’s something.
Something that whispered I’m not forgotten; that I can still be felt, still be held like I’m worth staying for, even if just for a moment.And that’s the shift in my heart I didn’t see coming.
I see remnants of him everywhere; hidden in headlines, whispered through old songs, etched into passing street signs, reflected in familiar cars that aren’t his but still make my heart pause.
It’s like the universe is screaming his name while I’m whispering someone else’s.
And it feels like torture. A cruel reminder of what I can’t have, of someone who isn’t ready; who may never be ready.
I used to think synchronicities were signs that he was thinking of me, reaching for me.
But now they feel more like shackles, trying to bind me to a love that I’m slowly learning to let go of.I’m learning to live without him. Not because I want to, but because I have to.
And as much as that truth stings, there’s something freeing about it too.
I don’t crave his presence the way I used to. I don’t feel the urgency to keep him close in words when he was never close in action.I stopped writing our story where it began; the moment we met.
And maybe that’s where it needs to pause.
Maybe one day I’ll go back and finish it.
But today… I don’t feel the need to keep his memory alive in the way I once did.I’m moving forward. Slowly, But I am.
And if he ever comes back, well…
I guess we’ll see who I’ve become by then.Because no one knows if we’re meant to find each other again; in the right time, in the right skin, in the right kind of love
Or if maybe… this was simply the end of our story. -
Today, my heart is heavy. It’s not broken the way it used to be; cracked open and bleeding for someone who didn’t notice. No, today it aches in the way a body does after a long fight. Exhausted. Tender. Quietly aware of every bruise.
Maybe it’s the blood cycling through me, maybe it’s the weight of a thousand silent goodbyes; but I feel the grief creeping back in like a tide I can’t hold off. I wanted to pretend I was done with it. But healing doesn’t always respect timelines. Especially not when ghosts still knock at the back of your mind.
I keep thinking of Dean. Of the tattoo. Of how he once made me feel like I was chosen. And now? I don’t know. He feels like a memory I’m trying to unlove. His name has been fading, even his voice slipping through the cracks of time. But then he does something; a whisper, a shadow, a quiet tug at the corners of my memory. Just enough to make me look back. Just enough to make me ache.
And Daniel? He was never the plan. He was the distraction I didn’t know I needed. The soft place to fall when Dean stopped catching me. And now I’m wondering if that softness could turn into something. Or if he, too, is just a temporary comfort dressed as something more.
I want both of them to disappear.
I want both of them to show up.
I want neither.
I want peace.I want to forget them entirely.
I want to remember every moment, every breath, every lie.
I want to move on.
I want one last chance.I want silence to blanket me.
I want answers to echo through it.
I want to be left alone in the ache.
I want someone to come find me in it.I want to stop feeling this.
I want to feel everything.
I want to burn the memory down.
I want to build a home inside of it.It’s all so confusing.
A carousel of almosts, of maybes, of “just one more time.”
When is enough enough?I’m tired of performing emotional CPR on connections that keep flatlining.
Today, I didn’t want to speak to anyone. I didn’t want to wonder who might message me, who might come back, or who might still be watching from the sidelines. I didn’t want the noise of other people’s voices in my head. I just wanted mine
So I stayed in my own presence. In my silence. In my books.
I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I don’t know if Dean will reach out, if Daniel will drift back in. But today, I didn’t beg for either of them. I didn’t chase, I didn’t plead, I didn’t perform.
I simply let myself feel.
-
I am becoming.
Not in the gentle way that flowers bloom, but in the violent cracking of old bones being rearranged to hold something heavier; something holier. The woman I once was is gone. She was soft in the wrong places and quiet when she should’ve roared. She bent herself into shapes to be understood by men who only knew how to take, not see.
But now? I no longer belong to the men who tried to rewrite my story with their own pens. I no longer dim my fire for the comfort of the fragile. I’ve unhooked my worth from the mouths of selfish men, and I am no longer waiting to be chosen.
I’ve chosen myself.
This is what it looks like when a woman crawls out of the wreckage they left her in; blood on her knuckles, smoke in her lungs, and divinity in her spine. I am not light and airy; I am storm-born, thunder-laced. There’s a chaos in me that no longer apologizes for existing. My softness has fangs now. My love, boundaries. My silence, power.
I’m stepping into my dark divine feminine; the version of me that doesn’t flinch when she’s too much. She seduces, she destroys, she rebuilds. She is the storm and the shelter. And she’s no longer asking to be handled gently; she’s daring someone to meet her where she’s risen.
Eventually, I want love; but not the diluted kind. I want the kind of love that mirrors my power, matches my magic, and never tries to shrink it. I don’t need to be tamed; I need to be met. And the one who comes next won’t be scared of my fire; they’ll stand in it with me.
I don’t regret who I’m becoming; only that it took this long to unleash her. -
There’s a baby being born today.
And it’s not mine.
It’s not my moment, not my miracle, not my name whispered into the hush of a hospital room.
But still, I feel it
like a tremor under my skin,
like a thread snapping somewhere I can’t reach.I don’t know why it hurts like this.
Only that it does.Maybe it’s because I thought I’d matter.
Even just a little.
That somehow, some part of me would still live in the echo of this new beginning.
But I don’t.
I’ve been erased so quietly it almost feels surgical.And I’m tired of pretending it doesn’t crush me.
Today, I miss a man I didn’t even love… not really.
But he felt like a bandage in the shape of a body.
He laid over the wounds Dean left and pretended to be enough
and I let him.
I wanted to be touched by someone who didn’t come with ghosts.
And for a while, he made me forget that I was bleeding.But now, I want him in the worst way.
Not because I love him,
but because I miss the illusion of being wanted.I want his silence to break, even if it’s only with a half-hearted ‘hey.’
I want him to notice my absence.
I want him to ache, just once, the way I do.I know he wasn’t mine.
He was never meant to stay.
But today…
he feels like the absence I didn’t prepare for.
And him… the one who still haunts me?
He’s having a baby today.
A piece of him entering the world,
while I stay quiet in the shadows of a story I wasn’t invited into.We once dreamed about this.
Not this baby, not that life
but the idea of something that could grow between us.
Something real.
Something sacred.Now he’s watching someone else give birth to a life I’ll never touch.
And I can’t help but wonder if he remembers me
if somewhere between the sterile hospital lights and the weight of a newborn in his arms,
he thinks about the girl who carried his chaos,
the one who never asked for anything but truth.I wonder if he feels my absence like a ghost in the room.
Or if he’s finally learned how to forget me.Either way,
today he became a father again.
And I became something quieter.
Something unmentioned.
Something left behind.
Grief doesn’t scream today.
It hums.
It settles behind my ribs like smoke.
It curls into my throat and doesn’t ask to be swallowed.
It just stays.
Like it knows I won’t tell it to leave.I haven’t cried in a few days.
I thought maybe that meant I was healing.
But today I realized
I was just holding my breath.And now I’m letting myself break.
I don’t want comfort.
I don’t want words.
I don’t want to be told I’ll be okay.I just want to sit in the wreckage of this day and feel every single jagged edge of it.
I want to bleed if I have to.
I want to let the ache hollow me out if it means something new might grow there someday.I don’t know what tomorrow looks like.
I don’t even know what tonight holds.But I know I can’t hold this in anymore.
So I’m letting it pour.
The grief.
The ache.
The longing.
The loss of something I never really had to begin with.
Today, a child was born.
And I felt the universe close a door I had been holding open with both hands -
There was a weight to our first encounter — heavy with tension, thick with want — the kind of intensity that made everything else disappear.
It felt like the universe knew we were heading into something that couldn’t be undone..
He kept kissing me, hard—like he had been waiting to. Pressed me back until we reached the head of the bed, and then just held me. His arms were around me, and I curled into him, fingertips grazing the outline of his stomach through his shirt. The fabric felt like a barrier I didn’t realize I wanted to remove until he asked,
“Do you want me to take it off?”I whispered yes.
He peeled it away, and everything in me stilled. I was trying to stay present, but my mind was swimming—too full, too loud. Still, I remember kissing him again, and again, and again. He kissed me like he needed to—gripping the back of my neck, fingers tangled in my hair, like he could anchor himself to my mouth.
We talked, lightly, about where this would go—on the bed or in the shower. I whispered, ‘the shower’ He didn’t question it. He understood. He always knew when I needed the lights low and the spaces quiet. He told me to go turn the water on, wash up, and that he’d be up after stepping outside for a bit.
And he was. Just like he said.
He stepped in slowly, fully undressed, the steam clinging to our skin like heat-wrapped silk. Everything around us blurred like the world was holding its breath, all I could feel was his skin against mine, wet and wanting. He kissed me again, deeper this time, with a kind of restraint that felt like a thread about to snap. I kissed him back, hands on his face, his body humming against mine. He guided my hand to him, and I froze—nervous, unsure, trembling.
“Do what you want with it,” he said.
I looked up at him, breath caught between fear and desire. My fingers wrapped around him like I was memorizing something sacred.
He turned me gently, bent me forward with a tenderness that made my heart ache, and I felt him—hard, hot, and pressing against me. My breath hitched. And then—
He pushed into me slow, deliberate — like he knew he shouldn’t, but couldn’t stop. It felt like surrender and possession all at once, like he was carving his name into a place no one else had ever reached
Everything after that moment was a blur — like my thoughts had been drowned in smoke and silence, or maybe it was the steam, or maybe it was the gravity of what we were doing. I remember how surreal it felt… like I was floating somewhere outside of my body, watching it all unfold but too deep inside the emotion to step away from it.
He felt like everything I had ever wanted in a man. Solid. Quiet. Big. And safe. When his arms wrapped around me, the world fell away. No thoughts, no pain, no past—just the rhythm of our bodies and the heat of the water between us. He made me feel protected. Like maybe I wasn’t broken. He made me feel needed — like his damage recognized mine and wanted to keep it company.
There was this haunting duality in that moment—right and wrong blending together, melting in the heat. My body responded to him like it already knew him. Like it had waited for him. His hands knew where to touch. His mouth knew where to kiss. There was no awkwardness. No hesitation. Just need.
It happened fast, or maybe it didn’t. Time folded in on itself, and I lost track of it.
After, we didn’t talk much. We got dressed. But something had shifted.
He made me feel something I’d never felt before—not just because of the sex, but because of what stirred underneath it. I knew there was more to me than I’d ever allowed myself to show. And I could feel it—he had more too. Layers. Emotion. Restraint. Things we were both holding back. I knew it was there, waiting, and I knew by the end of that weekend, it was going to surface.
We laid down for a bit, just in each other’s arms. He fell asleep fast, like he always could. I noticed that about him immediately—how easily he could slip into rest, like the world didn’t weigh on him the same way. He snored loud, too, and I should’ve been annoyed, but I wasn’t. It was strangely comforting.
I stayed awake for a while, just watching him.
I couldn’t stop looking at him. Studying his face. His chest rising and falling. Tracing the quiet moments with my eyes like they might disappear.
I didn’t want that moment to end.
And deep down, I think I already knew… the storm between us hadn’t even begun.
-
THE DRIVE
It was the end of May.
The first time I met him, I had to make up an excuse for why I was leaving town for the weekend. I told my husband it was a girls’ trip with my best friend. He already had his suspicions, I had been distant for weeks. Still, I made it believable. Eventually, he let it go.
We left a little before midnight, knowing it would be a 9 hour car ride. My best friend drove the whole way, and I barely remember the ride. It was dark, quiet, heavy. The kind of night where the only sound was the tires on the pavement and the occasional thud of bugs hitting the windshield. We were the only car on the road, no streetlights, no buildings, just the vast stillness of open land. We knew we weren’t in the city anymore.
We had entered the country.
The road stretched endlessly in front of us, winding through silence. It felt like we were driving through the middle of nowhere, and somehow, it mirrored everything I was feeling inside.
THE ARRIVAL
About ten minutes before we got there, I started to feel it; the butterflies. The kind that swarm in your stomach when anticipation and guilt collide. He and I were texting back and forth the entire time, keeping each other updated.
When we finally pulled up, it was awkward at first. I gathered my things, unsure of what to say. As I reached for my bag, he stopped me and pulled me into a hug. It was the first time I felt his body against mine; solid, warm, grounding. He was taller than I imagined. I knew he was 6’3″, but standing beneath him was something else entirely. His arms felt like a place I could stay forever, like a home stitched from slow heartbeats and safety
where nothing could touch me but him. After he pulled me into his arms, he took my bags without a word, like it was instinct, like caring for me was muscle deep. He walked beside me, not ahead,
and together, we walked inside, like the space already knew what we were about to become.
THE FIRST TOUCH
Before I came to see him, we had talked about intimacy, fantasies, curiosity, what it would be like. I opened the door to those conversations, and he was careful walking through it. He didn’t want me to think that’s all he was after. And he wasn’t. But we both knew there was something simmering beneath the surface.
We had talked about what might happen once we were alone
how he’d press me against him and kiss me like he’d been starving for it, slow and deep, like tasting something he thought he lost.
He said he’d lay me down gently, his hands exploring every inch like he was learning me all over again. We talked about how his fingers would trace along my thighs, how my body would melt into his, soft gasps, tangled sheets, skin on skin with no space between us. He told me he wanted to take his time, to feel me, hold me, ruin me softly, until our bodies were so tangled, we forgot where one ended and the other began.
And when the door finally closed behind us, he turned to me, hugged me again, grabbed my face, and kissed me. Like he had been waiting for it. Like he already knew what I tasted like in his dreams.
He didn’t stop kissing me.
It felt magical. Real. Like a secret finally being spoken out loud. Like something I had waited my whole life to feel, and now, it was happening.
THE RESTRAINT
As he kissed me, everything else faded. We already knew what was going to happen, we had spoken about it in late night conversations, imagined it, anticipated it. And now, it was here.
I felt the tension in his body, the pressure growing between us, his breath shifting, quickening. I could feel the weight of his want pressed gently against my stomach. And still, I held back. Not because I didn’t want it, I did. I loved him. I wanted to show him that love, but this was new. It was unfamiliar territory.
So we slowed.
He sat beside me on the bed, and I followed. For a moment, we just existed in silence, side by side. Then he turned, leaned in, and kissed me again, slower this time. Deeper.
He took my hand and placed it over him, letting me feel the proof of everything he wasn’t saying out loud. “You have no idea what you do to me” he whispered.
I was scared. But not the kind of scared that makes you run. The kind that makes you *pause*. Because everything in me wanted to fall into him, but something small, quiet, and trembling inside held back.
It wasn’t him I feared. It was the knowing. The quiet knowing that this wouldn’t end gently. That somewhere down the line, this man would leave me changed.
Not bruised. Not broken. But carved into.
Every time he touched me, I flinched, not from fear, but from the shock of unfamiliar tenderness. A new body. A new beginning. A new kind of ache.
And still… I stayed. -
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. -
I didn’t dilute myself.
I didn’t lace my fire with sugar just to be easier to swallow.
And that’s why he left.He said it was about compatibility
But what he really meant was control.
He wanted soft touches without the storm.
He wanted silence where I brought questions.
He wanted a body, not a presence.And me?
I crave ruin; the kind that leaves fingerprints on the soul.
I wanted passion that bruised,
Not politeness dressed as desire.
I wanted to feel something.
He wanted to feel safe.So he pulled away,
blaming the blaze for burning,
when truthfully; he was never built to hold fire without bleeding.Because the truth is,
I was too much woman for a man who only knew how to skim the surface.
He wanted the echo, not the thunder.
The outline, not the whole damn storm.And here’s the part I keep circling back to:
Me being a little more “aggressive,” playful, bold, that’s not a flaw.
That’s who I am.
But to a man who’s unsure of himself,
who’s used to women dimming their light just to fit into his shadows
my fire felt like a threat.Not because I threatened him.
But because I was a mirror.
And all he could see was the version of himself he was still running from.I didn’t hurt him.
I exposed him.
And when a man isn’t ready to face what he’s buried deep,
he’ll always choose the quiet, the convenient, the woman who won’t reflect him back to himself.So no, he didn’t leave because I was too much.
He left because I was real.
Because I stayed loud.
Because I burned bright.
Because I would never let myself be held with hands that only knew how to fumble. -
After Dean, came Daniel; the distraction I let linger
I wasn’t attracted to him at first, not in the way that stops you in your tracks.
He’s not tall, not broad, not the kind of man who turns heads in a crowded room.
Honestly, I gave him a chance out of curiosity, not desire.
He was only supposed to be a distraction, something temporary to pull me away from the heartbreak I was still bleeding through.But then he touched me.
And everything changed.There was something in the way he held me.
The way his hands moved with intention, not to take, but to connect.
It was like he knew what it felt like to be touched without meaning, and so when he touched me, it always meant something.
He wasn’t just passionate, he was present.
And when you’re starving for affection, even a moment of presence feels like a feast.That’s what pulled me in.
Not his face. Not his body.
His energy. His warmth.
The long talks. The meaningful, mid day check ins. The updates he’d send just to show I was on his mind.
It started to feel like something real, something I didn’t expect to want.
And for a moment, I thought maybe it could turn into something.Until he pulled back.
Another woman had come back into the picture.
He told me it was “family related” when he ended things, but I knew the truth.
And from that moment, something inside me shifted.
I knew if he ever came back, I could never truly give him my all again.
I couldn’t pour myself into something that would always come with conditions.But of course… he did come back.
About a month later.
Not for my heart, just for access to my body.
And I agreed, because at that point, I only wanted access to his too.
Or at least that’s what I told myself.But deep down, I was always curious if anything more could come from it.
Curious if he’d change. If we’d grow into something steadier.
Nine months passed.
And I found myself in a quiet war with my own mind, whether to stay and keep entertaining this cycle or finally let go and give myself the chance to heal for real.He and I would go back and forth.
He didn’t want commitment, but he never truly wanted to let me go either.
And that kind of indecision, it messes with your heart.
It makes you question your worth, your sanity, your strength.But I do know my worth.
And I know what’s best for me isn’t in the space between almost and not quite.
No matter how badly I crave his attention.
No matter how familiar his meaningless passion feels.Because the truth is, I never loved him.
Not even close.
I loved the distraction.
The habit. The comfort dressed up like meaning.
He didn’t break me.
He barely knew me.
But somehow, I still let his absence echo longer than his presence ever stayed.And maybe that’s what hurts the most
Not that it ended.
But that I stayed too long in something I never truly wanted in the first place.
That I mistook comfort for connection.It wasn’t about love at first sight.
It was about comfort at first reach.
And sometimes, that’s even more dangerous.Because now, even in his silence, my body remembers his touch.
But my soul remembers what it cost me.A Realization
The truth is, I don’t think I ever wanted to be with him long term. I wanted to see where things could go, sure, but only because I liked the feeling of being wanted. I liked the attention, the presence, the way he touched me with intention.
But when I sit with it longer, I know something deeper: if the past had come back while I was seeing him, I probably would’ve chosen that. Without thinking. Because even though one made me feel good, the other made me feel everything.
So no, this pain isn’t about love. It’s about losing a moment where I felt chosen. It’s about not getting the closure I never wanted to ask for. And it’s about realizing that maybe, just maybe, I was only holding on to someone who gave me comfort in the absence of the man I really wanted.
That’s not love. That’s longing. And I’m finally starting to let it go.
-
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. -
He wasn’t someone I saw coming. He didn’t walk into my life with promises, he entered like a familiar ache I didn’t know I was still holding onto. He was charming in a quiet, dangerous way, the kind of man who didn’t need to speak loudly to be felt. He carried a pain that didn’t bleed, but you could hear it in the pause before he spoke, and feel it in the weight of his stare.
He was danger dressed in comfort, seduction laced with restraint. His eyes were a piercing blue, the kind that held storms behind silence, beautiful, unreadable. A mustache and beard framed his mouth with rugged softness, like he hadn’t shaved on purpose but still looked like art. And that long hair… wild, messy, almost feral, like it refused to be tamed just like him. I loved running my fingers through it, especially when he let his guard down, when he closed his eyes and leaned into my touch like maybe, just maybe, love didn’t scare him in that moment.
He stood 6’3”, broad-shouldered and solid; the kind of presence you could fold into without realizing how tightly you were holding on. Barbed wire wrapped around his arm like a warning, inked in black like armor, rugged, unyielding, the kind of mark that says he’s taken hits and never backed down. It looked less like decoration and more like declaration: this man doesn’t bend, doesn’t break. I loved to trace it in the quiet, running my fingers over each curve while we were lying together; like maybe if I memorized the edges, I’d understand the walls he built, the battles he survived. It made me feel closer to the parts of him he didn’t know how to speak.
I always loved the way his arms felt around me; secure, commanding, like they knew exactly where I needed to be. And when his hands found their way to my neck, there was something unspoken in the way they fit; gentle, yet possessive, like he understood the power he held and how I craved it. He was always firm, never cruel; he knew exactly how far to go without crossing a line. There was a quiet promise in his touch: that I could come undone in the safety of his grip, and somehow still survive it.
I loved the way he would press his chest against my back, wrap himself around me, and kiss my lips from over my shoulder like it was instinct. It made everything pause. And his scent; God, his scent; was this perfect mix of cigarettes, fresh laundry, and bitter coffee. It shouldn’t have been poetic, but somehow, it was. It clung to my skin long after he left, like a memory I didn’t want to wash off.
He was raised by a single mother who did her best, but love alone doesn’t always fill the cracks left by absence. His father was barely there. His protectiveness over his brother came from survival, not softness. That guilt, that sense of responsibility, never left him. He carried it into every room, every relationship, every breath. It hid behind his charm. Behind his silence. Behind every “I don’t know what I want.”
He was a man trying to rebuild his life while dragging the weight of everything he never fully faced. His past wasn’t just troubled; it was haunted. When he was younger he was involved in a car accident that would shape the rest of his life. He was behind the wheel. A sharp turn. A flipped car. His girlfriend at the time died in that crash. His little brother; the one he felt responsible for; had to have his leg amputated. The grief marked him.
He lived in half-truths and hidden corners; a home life wrapped in contradiction. There were responsibilities he never spoke about, people he lived for but wouldn’t name. I never got the whole truth; just fragments, just enough to feel chosen, just enough to keep me tethered. There was a wife he rarely mentioned, buried beneath silence and discontent. He told me he was unhappy, that he hadn’t felt like himself in a long time. And even when I found out he had lied; about her, about their life, I was already too far in. My heart was tangled in the in-between, still hoping love could make liars honest.
He and I met at a time when I was unraveling, and instead of stitching me back together, he taught me how to live with the torn edges. There was chemistry, yes. But it was deeper than lust. It was an obsession with understanding one another through trauma. We touched each other in ways that went far beyond skin, sometimes too far. Our connection was spiritual, physical, emotional, and destructive. He awakened a side of me I didn’t know existed, one that craved closeness even in chaos.
He never gave me certainty. But he always gave me a reason to stay a little longer and in return, I gave him access to every version of me.
Loving him was never simple. It was like having a loaded gun wrapped in velvet; dangerous, seductive but I still pulled the trigger.
And maybe the saddest part of it all?
I was willing to take the shot, even if it meant wounding myself, just to prove I could love him through the recoil.
-
I never expected him to enter my life, not like that. But he did. He was the tide that kissed the shore gently, only to pull everything under. It began with long conversations. Each word pulled me deeper. Curiosity unraveled into longing, and longing into something I couldn’t name, but felt everywhere. And before I knew it, I wasn’t just attached to him, I was building a future in my head around him.
He said all the right things. He looked at me like he saw more than skin, like he was reading scripture inked across my soul. There was a hunger in his eyes, not just for my body, but for every memory, every scar, every secret I tried to bury. Being with him felt like setting fire to the quiet parts of myself, our intimacy was less like touch and more like combustion, like two storms colliding in the dark. He gave me the attention I didn’t know I was starving for. And I gave him the most tender parts of me, without hesitation.
This was the kind of connection that comes once in a lifetime, even if it’s not meant to last. Even if it almost destroys you.
trailofchapters 