It hurts in places
I never knew existed.
Like how my fingertips ache,
and a mournful scream
lives in the back of my throat.

There is a black hole
where my heart once lived,
dense and ravenous,
swallowing light,
devouring warmth,
collapsing joy
into nothing.

Some days,
the void feels large enough
to consume me,
completely.

But still,
I wake.
Still,
I breathe.

And somehow,
without noticing,
I’ve grown strong enough
to carry it.
Not because the pain has lessened,
but because it’s changing me.

Sometimes,
the pain wants to cry out
I love you
loud enough
to reach you.

But those words
would fall into a silence
you no longer fill.

I wish I’d said them
a thousand more times
when they still had
somewhere to land.

I wish I could say
I love you
instead of
I loved you.

But if this grief
is just love
with no place to go,
I will ache
in all these new and strange places.
Willingly.

And I will wake up every day,
and breathe, one breath at a time.

Because this pain
is simply love,
wearing a different skin.

I am not a poet.

My words were never made for the masses,
Made to pry emotions from your heart.
Rhyme can sometimes leave me at a loss,
And my inkwell is more often empty than not.

I am not a poet.

I can write only what I know and feel,
Each poem I give a little piece of me.
Every line is just a wisp away from existence.
Each poem might just be the last I write.

I am not a poet.

Yet why do you feel like my muse?
Your eyes remind me of a thousand places,
Like sea glass glinting green in the hush of tide.
Your voice has its command over my pulse.

I am not a poet.

But poetry you are.
How else do I describe this feeling,
If not with flowery words and rhyme.
And yet no words can hold it right.

I am not a poet.

I would be lost if I were.
For if I give a piece of me,
It will always be here in this poem,
With You.

To be a woman is to be objectified.
Through your eyes,
I am never just a soul wearing skin,
I am only skin. A body.
And this body
has been too thin.
Not thin enough.
Beautiful, but only when it gives you what you want.

I’ve been told to change, to squeeze,
to mold myself into your ideal:
perfect skin, perfect shape,
a perfect everything,
forever growing younger instead of older.

But I don’t need your commentary.
I don’t want your opinions.
Because I don’t need you to want me.
I don’t want to be craved,
I want to be earned.

This body is just a vessel.
My soul is what quenches thirst.
It loves, not to ******, but to nurture.
It builds, it softens, it embellishes your light.

Only the emotionally fluent
and the spiritually grounded
may proceed to touch this mind,
or this body.

I am not for everyone.
Nor do I want to be.

I’m sorry I loved you like that,
like my soul already knew you.

Not just the magnetic force of you,
but every version you buried:
the boy who flinched,
the man who ran,
the heart that never thought it was worth staying for.

I saw it all,
the shadows, the fractures,
the beautiful, broken mess of you.
And I loved you anyway.

I’m sorry I loved you
the way I did,
with everything,
when you were only ever half-open.
I’m sorry for the love
your hands weren’t
steady enough to hold.
I’m sorry I still carry it,
fiercely, quietly,
like it has no expiration date.

I am holding a love
with no destination.
It floods me without warning,
fills me with purpose,
With all the fire of arrival, and nothing waiting on the other side.

No, he is not
waiting at the gate.
He’s nowhere.
And this love,
it’s too vast for my body,
too loud for sleep,
too loyal
to walk away.

This grief,
this relentless, boundless
love was meant to land
in his heart.
Always.
Instead it circles inside me,
wings beating
against bone,
a bird
that can’t find
a place to perch.

I can’t destroy it.
I won’t.
It’s the last thing I have
that still knows
his shape.

But it’s heavy.
It trembles.
It begs for release.
And I am breaking
under the weight
of what cannot be given.

I wasn’t made for screens and noise,
For empty days and plastic joys.
There’s something deeper in my chest,
A call to rise, a silent quest.

My hands were shaped to hold a flame,
Not chase applause, not play the game.
I feel the weight of unseen wars,
Fought in silence, behind closed doors.

The dragons now wear modern skin,
Anxiety, the grind, the spin.
They steal our peace, they drain our light,
And yet we smile, too tired to fight.

The princess isn’t locked away,
She’s here in every break of day.
She’s love I guard, the voice I know,
The reason I won’t let life go.

But in this world of ticking time,
Where dreams are shelved and truth’s a mime,
A warrior soul feels out of place,
Still searching for its rightful space.

Yet I endure, I still ignite,
A flicker in the hollow night.
If not to win, then just to try,
To live with heart before I die.