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.
-
-
There’s a sobering kind of clarity that comes when you finally admit to yourself that you weren’t in love with the person… you were in love with the potential of them.
That was you, Dean.
A character I built up in my mind.
A version of you that never existed, because if it did?
We’d be together.
We’d be living together, building a life together
not strangers orbiting each other’s memories.But instead, I was just your rebellion.
Your breath of fresh air when home life got suffocating.
Your playground to explore the darker sides of yourself that you couldn’t admit you wanted.But you couldn’t sustain it.
You couldn’t sustain me.
You gave me half versions of yourself, stiff and withholding.
You were magnetic over the phone,
your voice dripping in tension,
in words that felt like rope around my waist.But in person?
You were a ghost in a body.
A stiff board.
A man I had to pry feelings out of,
like trying to extract blood from stone.And sure, there was that one time.
That one time when I was on top, riding you,
when the air between us thickened
and for a fleeting second it felt like we existed in a world only we could feel.
But it was just a flash. A blip.Every other time?
I was just a body for you to get off in.
A placeholder for your curiosity.Meanwhile, here I am with this new person.
He’s not perfect.
Emotionally, he’s unstable, messy even.
But he’s here.He touches me like he means it.
Grabs me.
Kisses me like he wants to consume me.
He doesn’t need a 9 hour drive or a planned trip just to show up
and fuck me with presence.He’s not a shadow.
He’s flesh and blood and heat.You?
You were just a story I kept re reading, hoping the ending would change.
But I’ve read it enough times to know better.And maybe that’s why you keep showing up in my signs,
in my dreams,
in the echoes of my waking moments.Because you know it too.
You can feel the thread fraying.The rebellion is over.
The escape is gone.And I’m not yours to escape with anymore.
-
There comes a point where the ghost of someone feels less intoxicating and more… tedious.
And that’s where I am with you, Dean.It used to be that your name was a pulse under my skin,
your memory a whispered drug I couldn’t quit.
But now?
Now it’s just a weight I keep waiting to drop.
A burden, not a blessing.
A glitch in my system I forgot to debug.The signs still come; your car’s make and model haunting intersections,
your name screamed into my dreams without warning,
your shadow dancing in songs I didn’t cue up.
And I don’t even flinch anymore.
I just exhale, because it’s not fascination anymore.
It’s inertia.I’m not sitting here romanticizing the connection.
I’m not crying into my pillow wondering what I did wrong.
Those days? Dead & gone.
What’s left is this dull, lingering static of your energy.
This half finished sentence in the story of my life that I’m sick of re-reading.So here’s the thing: just come back already.
Not because I need you.
Not because I crave you.
But because I’m ready to be done.
I’m ready to either punctuate this chapter or rip the pages out altogether.Come back so we can either define the inevitable, or finalize the disconnect.
Are we friends? Are we strangers? Are we nothing?
Because I’m standing at the threshold of my peace and you’re the last ghost still knocking.Either come in quietly or leave entirely, but either way close the damn door behind you.
I am ready to move on.
With you, without you; but never in between.Because I’ve got better things to do than wait on a shadow to materialize.
I’ve got better things to feel than the phantom of something you can’t even name.So this is me telling your ghost:
time’s up.
Either haunt me properly or disappear for good -
I don’t want to ruin this before it begins.
I can feel it, the way my chest tightens when the silence stretches just a little too long, the way my stomach flips when I’m left alone with my thoughts for just a moment too long. I catch myself pacing, picking apart every last word exchanged, looking for hidden meanings that aren’t there.
It’s not about him, really.
It’s the ghosts of men who promised me they would stay and then vanished. It’s the coldness of waiting for words that never came, the sickening drop in my stomach when I realized I wasn’t worth the consistency I craved. It’s every “good morning” that stopped without warning, every “I’m not like the others” that turned out to be a lie.
And now there is him.
He feels different. There’s a calm in him, a quiet strength I’m not used to. He seems to be at peace in places where I have only known chaos. He moves at his own pace, slow and steady, never rushing what doesn’t need to be rushed, not pulling me in too fast, but not pushing me away either.
He is emotionally independent, and I can tell he is careful with his energy, careful with his days. I know he’s just stepped out of the wreckage of a marriage, and I know he’s still finding his footing in the world again. We’re taking this slow, and I understand that. I respect it.
But the silence still stings.
He’s teaching me patience. Teaching me to breathe when the quiet comes, to let the empty space between us simply be empty instead of something I need to fill with a thousand frantic words to prove I matter. He is showing me that connection can exist without constant proof, that I don’t have to perform to be seen.
It’s the hardest lesson, this learning to be still.
Because the part of me that has been left, ghosted, and overlooked is always begging me to run, to pull away before he does, to protect myself before I have to watch him leave.
I don’t want to sabotage this, but it’s like the old hurt in me reaches out to test him. To see if he’ll bend when I lean, to see if he’ll pull me closer when I start to drift.
It’s a strange dance, this thing we’re building. It is a gentle breeze tangled with a hurricane, a soft rain falling over a forest fire. I want to let it rain, to let it cool the fear in me, to let it wash away the ashes of what I’ve lost before. I want to let him show me who he is, instead of letting the ghosts of who came before him dictate the story we’re writing now.
It’s new. It’s uncertain. It’s terrifying.
But I am trying. I am trying to let him be who he is without demanding he fix what he didn’t break. I am trying to let the softness stay, to let the days pass without testing him, to believe that sometimes people mean what they say.
That maybe, he really isn’t going anywhere. -
He came into my life quietly, like a storm rolling in under soft skies. At first, it was light, easy, a spark that felt like a promise. A message here, a glance there, the kind of beginning that makes you wonder what it could become. It was soft. I was soft.
But somewhere along the way, softness turned into chaos.
It became a game neither of us admitted we were playing. I would spiral, drunk off my emotions, off the longing, off the way he knew how to show up just enough to keep me tethered. He would let me unravel, let me spill out in messy paragraphs of midnight confessions, and he would take it. He would take all of it, responding just enough, never too much, never too little. He would stay.
We would dance in circles, burning through the same conversation on different days. Me, screaming in silence for him to prove me wrong, to prove that he could be more. Him, showing up when it was convenient, when the pull of me was too loud to ignore, when the silence from me became heavy enough to make him move.
And somehow, we never stop. We never let go.
Ten months of this. Ten months of push, pull, crash, burn, repeat. Ten months of “come over,” “I miss you,” “I can’t do this anymore,” “okay, see you soon.” Ten months of stolen moments that end as quickly as they begin. Ten months of me telling myself that this is just what it is, of him taking what he needs, of me giving it, of him letting me feel like maybe, just maybe, I’m the exception, only to remind me that I’m not.
It’s toxic, the way we orbit each other.
It’s the way he texts back after I blow up his phone, like nothing happened, like my breakdowns are just background noise to the quiet chaos we share. It’s the way he hugs me before he leaves, the way he kisses me softly after making me feel like nothing, the way he reminds me without words that he’ll always come back because he knows I’ll open the door.
It’s the way I hate it, but crave it. The way he hates it, but stays.
We are toxic. He and I, we are a war disguised as routine. A battlefield of unspoken words and unmet needs, a graveyard of promises neither of us made, but both of us keep stepping over. It is the kind of connection that feels like a cigarette you can’t quit, the kind that burns you slow, that leaves you coughing, but keeps you reaching for one more drag.
It is wanting him when he is absent, and resenting him when he is present. It is knowing that he won’t change, and refusing to let him go. It is him knowing that I won’t stop trying, and refusing to give me more. It is a cycle. It is a sickness. It is an addiction dressed up as a connection.
It’s the way we keep doing this, over and over, as if we’re waiting for the other to end it first, as if we are testing who will walk away, who will stop replying, who will let the door close. Neither of us do. We let it hang open, wide enough to crawl back through, just enough to keep the tie alive, just enough to keep the damage going.
This is what it is. A toxic, chaotic, unending, twisted dance between two people who don’t know how to let each other go.
-
This series was never about them. It was about me.
Tyler taught me what it feels like to disappear in a life that was never truly mine. I loved the idea of family, of stability, of safety, but it was a love that came with conditions I could never truly meet without abandoning myself. I tried to be what he needed, shrinking my dreams, silencing my voice, holding it all together while I was falling apart inside. I learned that staying isn’t loyalty when it costs you your spirit, and leaving wasn’t me failing my family; it was me finally saving myself.
Dean reminded me what it felt like to be seen in a moment when I had forgotten I was still alive inside. His presence cracked me open during the years I spent numb, reminding me I could still ache, still want, still dream of softness beyond the shadows of my failing marriage. I mistook the intensity for safety, the chaos for connection, but it was never meant to save me. It was a spark that woke me up, reminding me that I was alive, and that my life was still waiting for me.
Daniel taught me the ache of almost, the way uncertainty can feel like hope when you are starving for connection. His words were soft but empty, gestures inconsistent, presence always just out of reach. I mistook the attention for care, thinking if I stayed patient enough it would become something lasting. It didn’t. I learned I wasn’t asking for too much; I was asking someone who was never ready to give it.
Trey was the flicker I didn’t chase. The possibility that appeared when I was already whole, already healing. I felt the old urges to prove my worth, to shape shift into what he might want, but I caught myself. I let him fade without begging him to stay. I learned what it meant to walk away before it could become another wound, and that was healing in itself.
JC was the temporary comfort, the validation I reached for in a moment of loneliness. Someone tied to people I once loved, whose presence felt like a lifeline I didn’t need but took anyway. I didn’t want him, not truly, but I let the words, the flirting, the attention soften the edges of days that felt too quiet. It wasn’t love, it wasn’t connection it was a mirror showing me how far I’ve come, and how I no longer need to fill my emptiness with people who are not meant to stay.
And now, with this return, Daniels return; it’s different. It’s not a storm or a promise, not a reunion I am molding my world around. It is a quiet stirring, an echo of what was, meeting the woman I am now. I am not proving my worth, I am not pausing my life, I am not begging to be chosen by someone who couldn’t choose me before. If he wants to know me, he will have to meet me here, in the life I’ve built without him, in the freedom I’ve claimed, in the woman I’ve become.
And if he leaves again, it will not break me. Because I am no longer waiting. I am living, expanding, raising my children, building my peace, and choosing myself daily.
If Dean returns, we will cross that bridge when we get there. But I will not stop living for a ghost. I am no longer haunted by who I was when I loved him. I am alive, I am free, and I am unafraid of a life without him.
Throughout this journey, I have had great people supporting me; friends who have stood by me, reminding me I am loved, reminding me I am worthy, reminding me I am strong. I am living now, truly living, finding out who I am without others trying to mold me into who they want me to be. For the first time in so long, I am loving the person I am and the woman I am becoming.
I will not go back to who I was before. If someone new enters my life, or if one of these men return, they will have to accept me as I am now. I am no longer the girl they met, and if they cannot accept the woman I have become, I will continue to live without them, just as I have been.
Ashes & Altars was never about them. It was about the woman who rose from everything that tried to break her, who rebuilt herself piece by piece, who learned to love herself loud enough that no one’s absence can shake her foundation again.
This is not the end. This is the continuation of choosing me.
-
The Return of Daniel
It’s strange how someone can slip back into your world without warning, like the soft hush of rain you only notice once it’s already falling. Not crashing through your door, not demanding space, but quietly, like a whisper you almost convince yourself you imagined.
There is no grand reunion. No cinematic embrace. No promises of change or vows of forever. Just the small reappearances. The way his presence flickers again in the spaces you thought you had closed off for good.
It would have undone me once. The hint of him. The knowing he was near again. The hope that maybe this time, things could be different. That maybe I could be enough, or he could be ready, or timing would finally be kind.
But I am not who I was the last time he was here. My softness has grown roots. My boundaries have become prayers I am finally willing to answer.
There is a tenderness in his return, but it does not take me out of myself. It does not empty me into the waiting. It does not make me shape shift into someone easier to hold.
He is here, in the small ways he knows how to be. But I am here, too, in the vastness of who I have become.
And I can let it be what it is without bleeding for what it isn’t.
I can feel the small warmth without begging it to become a wildfire.
I can acknowledge the softness without losing the edges I worked so hard to sharpen.
Maybe he doesn’t even know how much I’ve changed. Maybe he thinks I am still waiting. Maybe he believes the door is still open in the same way it was before.
But the truth is, the door is different now, and so am I.
He can linger if he wants to. He can leave again if he must. I will not lose myself either way.
Because this time, I am not bracing for the goodbye. I am not performing worthiness. I am not waiting for him to decide if I am worth choosing.
This time, I am simply living.
If he wishes to know me, he will have to meet me here, where I have learned to love my own company, where I have made peace with the quiet, where I have found joy in the spaces he used to fill.
His return is not my undoing. It is just another reminder of how much I have survived, how much I have healed, and how beautifully I have learned to stay soft without staying small.
-
The Almost That Reminded Me I Don’t Need Another Bandage
Not every man is a heartbreak. Some are just a lesson in timing, in energy, in the subtle art of not chasing what already shows you it won’t stay.
Trey wasn’t a storm. He wasn’t even a whisper of one. He was a flicker, a maybe, a “could be.” A curiosity I entertained in the quiet hours when I was still healing from deeper wounds.
And I was open. I was honest. I asked. I invited. I said, I’m here if you want to show up. But he didn’t. Not really.
There were no games, no betrayals. Just a slow fade. A man who didn’t follow through. And a woman who didn’t beg him to. Because I’ve done that before.
With Tyler, I stayed far past the point of being seen. With Dean, I confused emotional chaos for connection. With Daniel, I let silence control me, clinging to crumbs and calling them care.
They were all bandages, temporary distractions I wrapped around gaping wounds. Dean was the salve I smeared over the ache Tyler left. Daniel was the smoke I inhaled to numb the burn Dean carved into me.
And I almost made Trey another one. Another placeholder. Another story I let write itself just because I was tired of feeling unwanted. But this time, I saw it. This time, I stopped it. Because I’m not in the business of proving my worth anymore.
I didn’t chase Trey. Not because I didn’t care, but because I finally care more about myself than the outcome. I saw the pattern. The “yeah maybe” followed by nothing. The lukewarm interest that never warmed into presence. The silence after I offered space.
And instead of trying harder, instead of twisting into the shape of what he might want, I let the fizzled out flame die on its own. I didn’t smother it. I just walked away from the match.
This time, it’s about me. Not about replacing pain with attention. Not about needing someone else to remind me that I still matter. Not about seeking closure in someone else’s lack of effort. This time, it’s about me. Choosing me. Living for me. Loving myself loud enough that no one’s absence feels like a vacuum anymore.
Trey didn’t disappoint me. He simply didn’t rise. And I no longer wait at sea level for men who can’t meet me at the summit.
I am not the same woman I was months ago. The one who would accept words without action. The one who thought effort was love. The one who believed she had to shrink to be kept.
No. Now, I am the woman who says, “If you want me, show me.” And if you don’t? That’s fine. I’ll keep walking.
Because I’ve lived through heartbreak. I’ve sat in the ruins of almost love. I’ve bled for people who never even noticed the stain.
And now? I’m building something new. With peace. With solitude. With summer sun and freedom in my bones.
I don’t know if Dean will return. If Daniel will ever think of me again. If someone new will show up and finally stay. But I do know this: I’m no longer waiting.
I’m becoming. I’m unfolding. I’m living for the girl who once begged to be chosen and now finally chooses herself.
Trey didn’t get a chance to break my heart. I chose to protect it before he could.
-
“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.
-
I used to think marriage was the dream. The gold at the end of the chaos. A place where love settled into safety and someone said, “I’m not going anywhere.”
But life taught me different.
The first time I wore a ring, I thought it meant forever. I thought promises made on paper held more weight than the ones whispered in the dark. I thought love would grow stronger in the structure. Instead, it got smaller. Buried beneath unspoken resentments and unmet expectations. And when it ended, I didn’t mourn the title. I mourned the feeling of being unseen, even while being claimed.
Then came a love I never expected. One that didn’t come with a ring, but came with intensity. Connection. Confession. He told me he wished he met me before his life got complicated. Said, “If I met you first, everything would be different.”
But he didn’t meet me first. He met me after. After the vows. After the obligations. After the decisions that built a life he no longer wanted but didn’t know how to leave.
And in that space, he offered me marriage. Again. Not because he had to. But because, maybe for the first time, he wanted to marry someone he actually loved.
But I didn’t want it.
Not because I didn’t love him. But because I finally understood something: Love isn’t proven in paperwork. It’s not sealed with a courthouse signature or a shared last name.
It’s proven in the silence. In the staying. In the showing up. Every damn day.
I don’t need a ceremony. I don’t need a ring. I need presence. I need truth. I need peace.
I’ve had the performance. I’ve had the title. But what I want now is depth. Substance. Someone who doesn’t need to own me to honor me.
So no;…. I don’t want to get married again. Not because I don’t believe in love. But because I do.
And I’ve learned that real love doesn’t always come dressed in white. Sometimes, it comes quietly. Unpromised. Unscripted. And that’s enough for me now.
-
I’ve been caught somewhere between restraint and surrender.
Yesterday stirred something in me; memories I thought I shelved, and emotions I promised I wouldn’t revisit. An unexpected name appeared where I wasn’t looking for it. A coincidence, maybe. But it brought warmth. That familiar, unexplainable warmth. The kind that used to make my heart skip when I thought someone was thinking of me, too. And just like that, I was back in a place I swore I had left for good.
It’s strange how the body remembers what the mind tries to forget. A glance at a screen, a car that resembles one I used to trace with my eyes, a moment of stillness where everything feels suddenly loud again. For a moment, I missed something; not someone, but the way someone once made me feel. Desired. Pursued. Special.
But I also remembered what came with that. The limitations. The rules. The unspoken boundaries that screamed louder than words. I remembered being told not to leave a trace; not to let the night bleed into the morning. What we were wasn’t supposed to echo. It wasn’t supposed to linger on skin or memory.
And now, there’s this new presence. Someone who doesn’t flinch at the aftermath. Who doesn’t rush to erase the evidence.
He lets it stay.
It’s subtle, but it says everything. It says, “I don’t mind being reminded of you later.” Even if just for a night. And that alone is different. It’s not love, and I’m not looking for that right now. I’m not ready for anything to root too deeply. But still…I can’t lie and say I don’t notice how aligned we are. The things we both enjoy. The shared cravings. The compatibility that’s rare and raw and oddly comforting. It’s what I used to get in pieces, split between different people. Now it feels like it’s all wrapped in one.
And that’s terrifying.
Because I’m still guarded. I still feel the weight of past patterns trying to repeat themselves. And while I want to explore this new energy, I’m hesitant. Not because I don’t want it, but because I know how easy it is to fall. Especially when someone knows just how to touch all the right parts… emotionally, physically, intimately.
I know he’s tied elsewhere, emotionally. I feel that. So maybe it’s good that today is quiet. Maybe space is saving me from spiraling. Maybe the silence is my shield.
I’m not ashamed of wanting something physical. Just because I’m not ready for love doesn’t mean I’ve stopped craving closeness. This isn’t about being reckless; it’s about being honest.
Honest that I want to feel again. Honest that I’m scared of being hurt again. Honest that sometimes, even when the heart is healing, the body still aches.
So I’m staying open, but not exposed. Curious, but cautious.
Because while I don’t need another storm, I also don’t want to live in drought. -
Lately, it feels like I’ve been walking through a house where every floorboard creaks with memory. The kind of house where no door truly closes, where ghosts don’t rattle chains; they breathe down your neck with familiar perfume and timing too perfect to be coincidental.
I’m not actively reaching backward, not anymore. I don’t have hands outstretched, begging the past to return. But somehow, it still lingers. Soft taps on the windowpane of my life. Flickers of headlights that match a car I used to know too well. A name dropped in passing, a time on the clock that repeats too often to ignore. The kind of signs that feel like fingerprints on a mirror you just wiped clean.
It’s strange, how I don’t feel tethered to him anymore, but I still flinch when the wind moves like he used to. My chest tightens, but it’s not longing; it’s muscle memory. I used to ache for him. Now I just brace for impact.
There’s another presence now. A new character in this half-written chapter. He doesn’t demand space in my mind, not yet. But he brushes past thoughts of the others in ways that make me pause. There’s something easy about it, but also something eerily reminiscent. He reminds me of a silhouette I’ve already survived. And that makes me hesitate.
I’m trying to exist in this delicate in-between: not craving love, but craving connection. Not looking for ownership, just presence. Just someone who lingers a little. Someone who stays long enough to make me feel seen, but not long enough to carve their name into my ribs.
It’s not that I’m scared of intimacy; it’s that I’ve memorized the pattern. The sweet beginning, the slow unravel. I’ve been handed promises dressed like apologies and kisses that tasted like goodbye. I’ve mistaken lust for comfort. I’ve called chaos passion. I don’t want to do that again.
And still, the signs keep showing up. He keeps showing up. Not in flesh, but in symbols. Like the universe is playing a cruel game of charades, and I’m forced to guess: Is it coincidence? Or is it him reaching out without reaching out?
I don’t want to play anymore. I don’t want to decode breadcrumbs from a man who left the table a long time ago. But it’s hard not to notice when the music shifts, and it’s the song we once lived inside. Or when the time on the clock looks like the date everything changed.
I’ve cried over things I can’t explain. Flashes of metal and wheels that mimic memories. Messages that never arrive, but still feel sent. It’s not grief. It’s the exhaustion of being haunted by something you’ve finally let go of;…only to have it circle back like smoke, just when you’ve learned to breathe again.
I don’t miss him. I miss who I thought he could be. I miss who I was when I believed in that version of him.
And maybe that’s what this is: a funeral for a future that never came.
So I’m holding space for my softness. I’m guarding the pieces of me that used to break so easily. I’m not chasing anymore; not him, not validation, not even clarity. If answers come, they’ll have to find me here; where I’m finally learning to sit still with the echoes and not invite them in. -
I Don’t Romanticize You Anymore
I don’t flinch when a car looks like yours. I don’t wonder if that flicker in the corner of my vision is some kind of sign. I don’t look for you in the wind, or the patterns, or the silence. Not like I used to.
There was a time when everything felt like a message from you. A code I thought I was meant to crack. I used to turn over every little thing, looking for you inside it. But now? Now it just passes. Like weather.
I don’t think about where you are. I don’t picture your hands, your voice, your eyes. I don’t replay things like I used to. And maybe that’s healing. Maybe it’s just what comes after being exhausted by hope.
I don’t feed it anymore. Not the ache. Not the memories. Not the what-ifs. I let them starve in the quiet.
And I don’t know if that means I’m truly letting go; or if I’m just suppressing it all so I don’t have to feel you anymore. But whatever it is, I know I’m not yours in the way I once was. And you’re not mine.
Because getting over you hurt. It burned through my chest on quiet nights and sat like a weight in my stomach when the sun came up. I grieved a life we never even started. A version of us I believed in more than I should have.
You told me you wanted a better life. That you weren’t happy. That things could be different. But when it came time to choose? You chose the same broken routine. You chose comfort in chaos. You chose silence instead of change.
And I get it. I understand why you picked the life you did. I understand staying stuck is easier than growing. But don’t pretend you didn’t have a choice. Don’t act like we couldn’t have had more.
We could have had peace. We could have had freedom. We could have had each other.
But you chose what was familiar. Even if it was killing you slowly.
And that? That’s no longer my burden to carry.
You can stay there; happy or not, fulfilled or not. You can wake up beside a life you settled for and convince yourself it’s enough. But I won’t be waiting in the background of your indecision.
I no longer try to control it. I no longer hold my breath for signs. I’m letting it all be what it is.
And while you remain where you are, I’m living. I’m doing what I want. I’m feeling everything and nothing all at once. I’m not surviving you anymore. I’m finally surviving me.
I don’t romanticize you anymore. I don’t dress our ending in softer colors. I don’t look at the past like it owes me something.
I’m still learning, still processing. But for the first time, I can say this:
If we were meant to be, we would be. And if we’re not? I’m not just starting to be okay with that.
I am okay with it. -
He Said He Was a Passionate Lover
But his body said something different.
I don’t know if he’d ever admit he liked it; what we had. The way I led. The way I told him what I wanted. The way I whispered, “Not yet,” and he obeyed.
That wasn’t just sex. That was surrender.
He said he could handle roughness, but he was a passionate lover. As if passion and power can’t exist in the same breath. But I felt the way his body obeyed. How he melted into me. He asked me to say “yes sir,” and then folded beneath the very energy he claimed to resist.
When his hands roamed my back, it wasn’t to dominate; it was to worship. He traced the curves like a prayer. Held me like something sacred. Every thrust, every breath, was layered with unspoken need.
And when it was done, he laid his head on my back like he didn’t want to leave. I pulled away once. He stayed. So I let myself lean back into him. And he didn’t move.
That wasn’t just skin on skin. That was something slow burning & inescapable. That was a man grounding himself in a moment that felt too fragile to name.
His hands didn’t just grip my hips. They held the moment. His lips didn’t just kiss my spine. They confessed.
We weren’t just bodies colliding. We were energy folding into itself. Breath syncing. Walls crumbling. A slow collapse of ego.
He wasn’t just inside me. He was letting himself be swallowed whole by it. And I felt it.
Something shifted that night. Something undeniable passed between us; more than lust, more than pleasure. A tremor of truth. Of recognition. Of wanting that ran deeper than the physical.
Because I didn’t just give him my body. I took his control. And for a moment…one long, breathless, unforgettable moment; he let me.
And when he couldn’t sit with what that meant, he gave me the only thing that would put the power back in his hands:
Silence. -
There’s a kind of ache that doesn’t bleed anymore but still begs to be touched.
That’s what he became, the scab. The one I kept picking.
Not because I loved the pain.
But because, somehow, reopening it felt safer than letting it disappear.
He wasn’t the wound.
He was the illusion of closure, a temporary shield over something much deeper.
Something I didn’t want to face.
Maybe, deep down, I wasn’t really reaching for him.
Maybe I was still reaching for the one before.
The one who broke me so quietly I never heard myself shatter.
And in my confusion, I told myself that touching the scab would somehow bring the ghost back to life.
Like maybe if I could just feel something, I wouldn’t feel so abandoned by everything.
But that’s not healing. That’s self harm with pretty hands.
Because neither of them held me with intention.
They were both just moments.
One cut me wide open.
The other… came with bandages but no stitching thread.
And I kept going back.
Again. And again.
Not because it felt good, but because it felt familiar.
But now I see it for what it is:
Every time I return to what isn’t mine, I delay what’s trying to find me.
Every time I revisit what I already survived, I push away what could actually heal me.
I don’t want to carry pain just because I’m used to the weight.
I don’t want to keep holding onto half love, half-effort, half-meaning.
I want wholeness.
I want peace that doesn’t ask me to beg for it.
I want to wake up one day and not remember how it felt to constantly ache for someone who never reached back.
So I’m done picking the scab.
I’m letting it heal; all of it.
Not into something hard and bitter, but into something sacred.
Something soft again. Mine again.
Because I deserve to be found, and seen; by someone who doesn’t have to hurt me first.
And I can’t receive that if I’m still clinging to what already let me go.
So this chapter ends like this:
Not with fire. Not with screaming. Not with closure.
But with me , choosing peace over patterns.
Choosing me over memory. -
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 -
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 connections don’t come with definition. They arrive without warning, without rules, and without the need to be explained. This wasn’t love. Maybe not even a story with a beginning or an end. It was a collision brief, breathless, and unforgettable. What we shared lived somewhere between skin and soul… not loud, but undeniable. This is how it felt to be touched by him.
There was something about him I never tried to explain.
It wasn’t logic, it was sensation.
A pull I didn’t question. A current I didn’t fight.
When we were together, it was like the world paused to watch.He touched me like he already knew me.
His hands didn’t just roam they memorized.
And when he kissed me God, when he kissed me he grabbed my face like he meant it.
Mouth urgent, lips full of something deeper than lust.
Like passion was pouring out of him faster than he could contain it.There were moments, just for a second when he’d kiss my back.
it was gentle, almost reverent, like I was something sacred.
Those were the moments that stayed with me long after the heat faded.Before I left, he’d press his lips to mine like he didn’t want to let go.
Not in a needy way, just in that quiet, burning way that made my body remember it later.
His kiss didn’t beg.
It branded.Every time he touched me, it was like electricity under skin.
Not static. Not fleeting.
But alive.
Like the whole room shifted just to hold the energy between us.It wasn’t just sex.
It was something unspoken, magnetic.
The kind of connection that doesn’t ask questions it answers them.There are bonds made from stories.
And then there are bonds made in silence
in touch, in breath, in fire.
We were the latter.And maybe that was all we ever needed to be.
-
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.
trailofchapters 