There are days
my chest burns
with a thousand unnamed feelings,
and I swear,
if I don’t find a place to put them,
I’ll split open
from the inside.

I romanticize everything—
the way light moves through a curtain,
the way someone laughs
without knowing I’m listening—
and it wrecks me.

I carry every goodbye like a funeral.
I fall in love with strangers
for no reason
but the way they exist.

The world wants me dull.
Wants me quiet,
contained.
But I’m all crescendo—
too loud,
too tender,
too much.

And oh,
where—
oh, where
to pour all this softness,
when no one knows how to hold it.

I wonder—
do the trees feel empty in winter,
like abandoned cathedrals with hollowed arches,
their prayers carried off by wind?
Do they mourn the once-gold choir of leaves,
or do they wait—
hands lifted in quiet faith,
hope braided into their roots
like a forgotten hymn?

Does the moon know she is not always whole?
That we love her in pieces—
when she is a shard of silver,
a lost earring in the sky.
Does she ache, too,
a lantern adrift in a sea of indifference,
admired but never held?

There is beauty, I think,
in what is missing—
in the pause before bloom,
in the ache of becoming.
The tree, the moon—
they teach us how to stay
even when we are not full.

Maybe they know.
Maybe they don’t.
But still—they remain.
And maybe that is enough.

To feel deeply in this world is to bleed slowly.
It is to walk through fire with bare feet
while others praise the virtue of numbness.

They say: Don’t love too much.
Don’t care too loudly.
Don’t be the one who stays when it’s easier to leave.

But I have never been able to touch halfway.
My love is ruinous.
I enter like a cathedral collapses—
all at once, with smoke and sacred noise.

I fall in love like it’s a calling,
like God Himself whispered their name into my ribs
and told me:
Here. This one. Burn for this one.

And I do.
Even when the world hands me a thousand reasons not to.
Even when it tells me connection is a game,
hearts are currency,
and tenderness is a flaw
to be corrected.

But I was not made for apathy.
I was not made for clever texts and ghosted evenings.
I was made for aching truth,
for eyes that don’t look away,
for conversations that scrape the soul clean.

I do not want half of anyone.
I want the whole,
even if it wounds me.

Because what is the point of living
if we are not willing to suffer
for something sacred?

They say:
You care too much.
As if it were a weakness.
As if they have not read the Psalms—
as if Christ did not sweat blood in the garden
out of love for a world
that would spit in His face.

There is glory in feeling it all.
Even when it rips you open.
Especially when it rips you open.

Let them scoff.
Let them sleepwalk through their half-lives.
I will keep loving like it matters.
Because it does.
And someone must remember.

You showed me forests,
and didn’t flinch when I stopped
to admire a tree like it had something to say.
You didn’t mock the way I paused—
studying branches like ancient friends.
You let me wander
with soil on my fingers
and wonder on my face,
and you never asked me to be less.

There is something so frightening
about being seen—
but you did it
without making it feel like exposure.
You let me be wonderstruck,
let me be loud,
let me vanish into quiet.
You never tried to fix it.
You just made room.

You made me feel like I wasn’t wrong
for being soft
in a world that teaches sharpness.
You made me laugh like the world wasn’t ending.

You made space for my awe—
for the little girl in me
who never learned to stop wondering.
And around you,
my heart laughed like her again—
loud, joyful, barefoot,
free.

It felt like being allowed to exist
without needing to be interesting.
And I didn’t know how much I needed that
until you gave it.

We shared coffee in the aftermath—
those mornings,
warm sheets,
skin still humming.
You made us coffee.
I stayed in bed,
watching the light move across your back
like it knew you.

We didn’t rush to make sense of the day.
We let it bloom slowly—
our bodies folded into each other
like pages in a book
no one else would ever read.

Later,
I found seashells on a walk
and kept them
like proof
that something small and beautiful
can survive pressure and time.

In the evenings,
we filled our mouths with good wine and good food,
laughed like people
who had known each other
long before this lifetime.
You let me be bright.
You let me take up space.
And I did—
unhidden,
a little too much,
exactly enough.

I didn’t apologize for my joy.
You didn’t ask me to.
You only filled my glass
and kissed the corner of my smile.
You smiled like my brightness
wasn’t something to fear.

My heart laughed in those moments,
like a child who no longer had to prove her joy.
You didn’t just see me—
you recognized me.
Around you,
my joy felt safe.

We danced like idiots in the kitchen,
sang badly in the car
like the songs were written for us,
moved like no one was watching—
because somehow,
that’s how you made the world feel:
empty of judgment,
full of room.

And now,
when the days stretch too far without you,
my heart panics.
It wants to knock on your door,
not for answers—
just for nearness.

Your soul feels familiar.
Your touch—
not new,
just remembered.

Even the hard parts
feel like something worth returning to.
Not because it’s easy—
but because it’s real.

And when I think it’s too far,
too hard,
too uncertain—
I remember your voice,
and how your touch felt like déjà vu.

Whatever this is—
it isn’t fragile.
It isn’t imagined.
And I won’t cheapen it with a name.
I won’t insult it with a label.

But if you asked,
I’d meet you in the forest again.
And again.
And again.