You are bones of my bones,
Not in ownership,
In recognition.
What was a missing rib had come back whole.
Not taken to complete you,
But returned to walk beside you.

Your kindness is
Patient,
Long-suffering,
Unenvied—
It moves like light through stained glass.

You are my promised land,
Not perfect,
But flowing—
With milk and honey,
With the quiet richness of sweet moments,
Where peace is enough to make everything feel divine.

I’ve known the flood,
The wilderness,
The wandering—
But now I know the garden again.
In the way you say my name,
Standing beside you,
The missing rib finally returned.
And whole.

And if God is love,
Then loving you
Is worship,
And every moment with you
A kind of prayer
I never want to say “amen” to.

We were strangers once,
but the space between us felt thin—
like a thread, waiting to be pulled,
to weave our lives together.
Then, suddenly, we weren't strangers anymore.
Time stretched and folded,
creating the perfect moment for us to meet.
A story eager to be told,
and there’s no feeling quite like starting a new book—
full of promise, full of possibility.
Where every word would matter,
every glance would linger,
where what we’d become
was already waiting to be written.
I want to hold onto every chapter,
while praying it doesn’t end
the way it began— As strangers

I hate pools, oceans, lakes, rivers.
I hate the feeling of the current against my body.
The fight to stay in one spot when the water wants me to go with it.

I hate how it whispers let go,
Like surrender is serenity
As if I haven’t fought too long to be here,
On my own terms

The chill that wraps around my limbs
Not gentle, not kind
But insistent —
Pulling me into depths I never chose

I hate the weightlessness,
Not the freedom, but the absence of ground,
The loss of edges,
Of lines I can hold onto

And I remember the diving board —
Toes curled over the edge,
The sky too big
The drop too deep

The water below dares me to jump,
Like it knows I don’t belong in the air,
Like it can’t wait
To swallow me whole.

I hate the silence before the splash,
That breathless second of doubt,
When the world holds still
And I almost believe I can be free,
Free to fall.

But I never am.
I step back.
The plunge is not worth the drowning.

In water, I am always unrooted,
Always drifting,
Always one breath away
From vanishing

Her love spread like the branches of a fig tree, reaching for the sky.
She offered shade during the hottest days, sheltering them from the harsh sun.
She kept them dry, protecting them from the tears of the sky.
They built their homes upon her spine, and though they never asked, she allowed it.
They carved their initials into her skin and bone, claiming her as "mine."
They thought her branches were meant to fuel their fires,
so they took chainsaws to her heart.
Despite the pain they caused, she believed that loving someone meant enduring it.
But in the end, they only cared for the sweetness of her fruit.

What is love,
if not the silence you hold
when your own name is on fire—
but you still speak theirs
with softness?

Is it not
a thousand quiet offerings
stacked in ordinary hours?
The choosing, again
and again
and again—
someone else’s peace
over your pride.

Love.

It doesn’t always wear white.
It doesn’t come
with violins,
vows,
or roses.

Sometimes,
it hides in the quietest corners of the day—
in the unspoken apology,
in the coffee made before sunrise,
in the way you fold their laundry
without expecting thanks.

It is the staying,
when leaving
would be easier.

It is not the grand gestures,
not the screaming from mountaintops—
it is the whisper
in a quiet room:
I’ll stay.

What is love,
if not the willingness
to become smaller
so someone else
can stand taller?

So tell me—
what is love,
if not
sacrifice?