She passed last week,
but I lost her long before that.

Not all at once, no.
She unraveled slowly,
like the hem of our childhood dresses
catching on the sharp corners of growing up.

I watched her vanish
thread by thread.

Her name was Hope.
Isn’t that the cruelest part?
Like the universe gave her a name
she could never quite hold.

We were young when we met.
Wild hearted girls with grass stained knees
and matching chocolate ice cream rings around our mouths,
dreaming of nothing bigger
than summer and sleepovers.

Back then, she was light
not the blinding kind,
but the kind that filters through trees
and makes the dust sparkle.

But something started to hollow her.
Quietly, like a tide pulling out
before the wreckage rushes in.

By high school,
the girl who once shared my birthday cake
was a ghost inside her own skin.
She waged war on her reflection
in silence,
until silence became the loudest thing in the room.

She went away
to hospitals, programs,
places with white walls and locked doors.
They tried to stitch her back together,
but every time she came home,
more of her had gone missing.

And I?
I held her name in my hands
like a broken seashell,
not knowing how to keep it from cutting.

She overdosed last week.
And now,
I don’t know where to put the pieces.
Of her.
Of me.
Of us.

I carry the grief like wet fabric
draped over my bones,
cold and heavy and clinging.

They say she lost her battle,
but it never felt like a fair fight from the start.
She was born tender in a world that rewards armor,
named for something the world so rarely gives.

She didn’t die for lack of trying.
She died from trying too hard
to disappear beautifully.

And now I grieve not just her death,
but every inch of her that vanished
before the final breath.
Every missed birthday,
every phone call that rang through,
every time I said “I’m here”
and knew it wasn’t enough
to pull her back.

And now the echo of her lives
in the corners of songs,
in the way I hesitate before answering,
“I’m okay.”

Because I’m not.
I’ve lost Hope.
And not the idea of it
the living, breathing,
aching, laughing girl
who once made me believe
we’d always have time.

But time ran out.

And now, I whisper her name
like a prayer no one answered.

There’s something about salt in the air
and your hand in mine
that makes the world feel softer
like maybe everything hard we’ve ever carried
was just meant to be set down here,
on this stretch of sun warmed sand.

I watch the sea catch fire in your eyes,
and I wonder how I ever lived
before knowing what it feels like
to see you lit by the sunset light
skin golden, hair wild,
laugh unguarded.
You are everything the ocean is:
unpredictable, powerful,
achingly beautiful.

Every wave that brushes the shore
writes your name into me again.
You, who make me braver.
You, who turn ordinary days into legend.
You, who remind me
that love can be both
a gentle tide and a roaring storm,
and I will take you in every form.

Here, away from it all,
I see us clearly.
I see future,
family,
freedom.
I see a life carved by salt and intention
not always easy,
but always ours.

So when we leave this place,
when the ocean becomes memory,
I will carry this moment
this island,
this version of us,
this sacred stillness
like a secret I wear close to my chest.

Because loving you
feels like coming home
to someplace I didn’t know
I’d been searching for.

I will speak your name with gentleness
not only when the air is still,
but even when thunder lives between us.
For even then, my love for you does not falter.
It only quiets itself
so it can listen.

I will never stop asking,
How can I love you better?
For you, I would be ten thousand times
more beautiful, more wise,
more patient, more kind.
If such a thing were possible,
I would become it.

Not for myself.
For me, I ask nothing.
But for you
I wish a thousandfold more of me.
I wish to be the kind of soft
you can rest your soul in.

I vow to grow not just old,
but whole with you
to be shaped by the seasons
of your spirit,
to remain endlessly curious
about the sacred country of your soul,
no matter how familiar it becomes.

I will trace the gentle furrows time leaves on your face
and think, always: How did I get this lucky?

When the world dims,
I will not simply stand beside you,
I will steady you.
And when joy finds us,
I will hold its shape with you,
quietly,
gratefully.

When your hands grow tired,
I will carry what they can’t.
Not out of duty,
but because loving you
makes strength feel like instinct.

I am the harbor
steady, unshifting
and you are the tide that forgets I drown too.

Sometimes you shift
and something in you sharpens.
You wear your hurt like a blade,
and I become the body that receives it.

You spit fire into my softness,
cutting through me with words
that slip too easily from your mouth,
then try to vanish with the sunrise.

You say you don’t remember,
that you didn’t mean it,
But something inside you does.

Because if love lives beneath the surface,
then so does resentment.
And I’m starting to wonder
which of the two fuels you more
when the bottle opens
or the storm begins.

You rage like you’re emptying something.
As if I’m a vessel meant to catch
what the world has done to you.
But I have my own weight,
and still,
I will carry yours.

I cradle the aftermath in my chest,
while you sleep off the wreckage.

And when you wake,
you speak soft,
apologize like love can erase the wound
without cleaning the blood.

But memory has teeth.
And mine won’t stop gnawing
at the edges of your promises.

How many times can I be the calm?
How many nights can I be the one
who swallows the thunder
so the house doesn’t shake?

You forget.
I remember.
You sleep.
I ache.
And still,
I remain.

God
or whatever is out there,
if you are

can you hear me?

I don’t need heaven.
I don’t even need hope right now.
I just need a moment
where the pain isn’t gnawing through me.

Please.

I’m so tired.
Not the kind of tired that sleep fixes
the kind that sinks into your bones
and tells you this is all you’ll ever know.
The kind that makes your chest ache
just from waking up again.

I’ve done the work.
The years of therapy,
the holding back the storm so I don’t lose people.
The pretending I’m fine
when I’m unraveling in silence.

And still,
no one sees how loud it is in here.

I feel like I’m drowning in plain sight,
and everyone just walks by
like I’m supposed to be able to breathe underwater.

If there is a God
if you’ve ever watched me cry on the bathroom floor,
if you’ve heard the prayers I never said out loud
then please.
Please.
I am begging you.

Just let it stop for a second.
Just one second without the ache.
Just one moment where I’m not
fighting myself to stay.

I don’t need answers.
I don’t need signs.
I just want to be held
by something kinder than this pain.

Let me put it down.
Let me rest.
Let me exist without bleeding.

She left on a Friday,
when the world remembered a Savior’s sacrifice
and Heaven welcomed home one of its own.
A woman of quiet strength and unwavering faith,
whose prayers were soft armor
and whose love echoed like hymns through generations.

To pass on Good Friday
feels like a whisper from above,
a holy timing for a soul so rooted in God’s grace.
As if even her goodbye was a testimony.
Not an ending, but a homecoming.

She believed in eternal life,
and now she lives it.

Loving her is like standing in the sun
warm, all-consuming, and impossible to ignore. From the moment I met her, something in me shifted, like the universe had finally placed a missing piece into my soul. It’s not just the way she looks at me, though her eyes alone send shivers down my spine. It’s the way she exists, effortlessly, unapologetically, as if she was meant to be mine all along.
Every touch ignites something deep within me. The brush of her fingers against my skin, the way she tucks my hair behind my ear, the way she holds me like she never wants to let go.. it’s intoxicating. I crave her, not just in a physical way, but in the way that makes me want to memorize every detail of her, to know every thought that flickers through her mind.
There’s an undeniable force pulling me toward her, something beyond reason or explanation.
She is my gravity, my magnetic north, the steady rhythm in the chaos of my world. And when I look at her, I see everything; my past, my present, my future.. all wrapped up in the form of the woman I love beyond words.

She is my greatest love story, and I want to spend forever writing it.