Tag: writing

Remnants

June 2nd, 2025

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.
Carousel of Almosts

May 29th, 2025

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.
Becoming Her

May 27th, 2025

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.
ERASED

May 22nd, 2025

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
Soft Collision: Part II *Deans Story Cont*

May 20th, 2025

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.
Soft Collision *Deans Story Cont*

May 20th, 2025

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.
Unapologetically Ablaze-(*Daniel cont*)

May 14th, 2025

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.
Comfort at First Reach-(*Daniel*)

May 14th, 2025

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.
Love Loaded-*Deans Story Cont*

May 7th, 2025

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.
Beneath His Gaze, I Fell (*Deans Story*)

May 6th, 2025

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.