Smoke me into your lungs.
Breathe me in slow,
as if you’re savoring
something dangerous
but necessary.

Let me flow through you,
your chest,
your bloodstream,
your thoughts
until I reach your brain
and settle there,
quietly unraveling the edges
of what you thought you knew.

Let me blur your vision,
soften the sharp parts
until all that’s left
is warmth and ache.

Let me live beneath your skin,
humming low,
like a secret you keep
but never tell.

Exhale me,
and I’ll still linger
in the spaces between breaths,
in the soft hush
before sleep.

I don’t want to be forgotten.
I want to be felt.
Like smoke that leaves its trace
long after the fire is gone.

and I find rest in
knowing that you're the keeper
of the rest of me ☄

I hope one day
I can look back on this version of me
with softness,
with pride not because I endured,
but because I finally broke free.

Free from the need
to fight for my worth.
Free from the ache
of proving I deserve to be loved.

I hope one day
it’s just given.
Offered like sunlight,
like breath.
Given because I exist,
not because I performed,
not because I fought.

It exhausts me
this daily battle
between who I know I am
and what the world
makes me beg for.

I love myself.
But that doesn’t erase the ache.
That doesn’t make the nights less quiet,
or the waiting less long.

One day,
I want to look at myself
and see someone loved
without question,
without condition
not earned, not explained.
Just known.

I want to know how it feels
for love to feel like home,
not like war.

And until then,
I will keep moving forward,
even tired,
even aching,
carrying the quiet hope
that one day,
it won’t feel this hard.

That one day
will come.