I’ve been thinking about Love.
Not the kind etched into marble
or pressed between the pages
of something classical and preserved—
but the kind that breathes—
wet, feral, unfinished.
The kind that has always existed
long before language tried to cage it
in sonnets and scripture,
in myths where gods split themselves open
just to feel less alone.
(It never worked.)
Because love was never meant to be contained—
only felt
in the fragile, fleeting moments
where something inside the body
dares to soften
despite knowing better.
And maybe
that is where it begins…
—
They say love is soft.
And it is—
the slow drag of fingertips
across the back of a hand
that forgot it deserves gentleness,
the hush between heartbeats
when something inside you decides,
against all prior evidence,
to stay.
It is breath shared in quiet rooms,
warmth pooling in the hollows of collarbones,
a body learning—hesitantly—
that not every touch
is a precursor to ruin.
—
But love is also teeth.
Not metaphorical,
not poetic exaggeration,
but something that bites down
on the most tender parts of you
and calls it devotion.
It is the splitting of skin
under the pressure of wanting too much,
the ache of being seen
past the point of comfort
into the marrow
you tried to keep hidden.
Love does not knock.
It seeps,
it floods,
it drags its soaked hem
through the corridors of your mind
and leaves mildew
and flowers alike
in places you swore were airtight.
—
History worships it.
Builds monuments out of it.
Writes epics where it conquers death,
where it turns men into legends
and women into cautionary tales.
We carve it into stone
like permanence will make it safer.
(It doesn’t.)
Because love has always been
as much a weapon
as it is a sanctuary.
—
There are those who cradle it—
hold it like a fragile animal,
feed it tenderness,
teach it to trust.
And there are those
who learn it as survival…
who call the sharpness familiar,
who mistake the bleeding
for proof of depth.
I have known both.
I have been both.
—
There is something wrong
with the way love lives in me.
It does not bloom—
it fractures.
It grows in the spaces
where damage has already made room,
threads itself through old wounds,
and calls that home.
I have reached for it
with hands that only know
how to brace for impact,
and wondered why
it recoils.
—
Self-love, they say…
as if the body does not remember
every time it was turned against itself.
As if the mirror is not a battlefield.
As if I have not stood there
trying to reconcile
the person who wants to be held
with the one
who cannot loosen her own grip
from her throat.
And there is that quiet, persistent fitching—
threaded somewhere behind the sternum,
a low, restless hum
insisting there is more of me
I have not yet survived into.
How do you soften
toward something
you were taught to survive?
How do you pour tenderness inward
when the vessel leaks
through every crack
someone else carved?
—
And still, love persists.
In the smallest, most defiant ways—
in the decision to stay one more night.
In the quiet forgiveness
that slips in unnoticed,
like fog through an open window.
In the body, despite everything,
continuing to reach
for warmth,
for connection,
for something
that does not immediately undo it.
—
Love is a contradiction
that refuses resolution,
a force that builds and destroys
with the same careful hands.
It will cradle your face
and split you open
in the same motion.
It will teach you
how to be held,
and then ask
if you can survive
being seen.
—
And I stand at the edge of it—
again and again,
hands trembling,
mouth full of all the reasons
to turn away,
and still…
still,
I ache to step inside.
I push in
like shadows unfurling in the moonlight.
I want the warmth—
the kind passed from mother to child,
lover to beloved.
I want the golden light of it
to pierce through my internal wreckage
and fall—
like sun on a lone flower
tearing through concrete,
petals trembling,
yet defiant.
Mar 25
Mar 25, 2026 at 5:59 PM UTC
I’ve been thinking about Love.
Not the kind etched into marble
or pressed between the pages
of something classical and preserved—
but the kind that breathes—
wet, feral, unfinished.
The kind that has always existed
long before language tried to cage it
in sonnets and scripture,
in myths where gods split themselves open
just to feel less alone.
(It never worked.)
Because love was never meant to be contained—
only felt
in the fragile, fleeting moments
where something inside the body
dares to soften
despite knowing better.
And maybe
that is where it begins…
—
They say love is soft.
And it is—
the slow drag of fingertips
across the back of a hand
that forgot it deserves gentleness,
the hush between heartbeats
when something inside you decides,
against all prior evidence,
to stay.
It is breath shared in quiet rooms,
warmth pooling in the hollows of collarbones,
a body learning—hesitantly—
that not every touch
is a precursor to ruin.
—
But love is also teeth.
Not metaphorical,
not poetic exaggeration,
but something that bites down
on the most tender parts of you
and calls it devotion.
It is the splitting of skin
under the pressure of wanting too much,
the ache of being seen
past the point of comfort
into the marrow
you tried to keep hidden.
Love does not knock.
It seeps,
it floods,
it drags its soaked hem
through the corridors of your mind
and leaves mildew
and flowers alike
in places you swore were airtight.
—
History worships it.
Builds monuments out of it.
Writes epics where it conquers death,
where it turns men into legends
and women into cautionary tales.
We carve it into stone
like permanence will make it safer.
(It doesn’t.)
Because love has always been
as much a weapon
as it is a sanctuary.
—
There are those who cradle it—
hold it like a fragile animal,
feed it tenderness,
teach it to trust.
And there are those
who learn it as survival…
who call the sharpness familiar,
who mistake the bleeding
for proof of depth.
I have known both.
I have been both.
—
There is something wrong
with the way love lives in me.
It does not bloom—
it fractures.
It grows in the spaces
where damage has already made room,
threads itself through old wounds,
and calls that home.
I have reached for it
with hands that only know
how to brace for impact,
and wondered why
it recoils.
—
Self-love, they say…
as if the body does not remember
every time it was turned against itself.
As if the mirror is not a battlefield.
As if I have not stood there
trying to reconcile
the person who wants to be held
with the one
who cannot loosen her own grip
from her throat.
And there is that quiet, persistent fitching—
threaded somewhere behind the sternum,
a low, restless hum
insisting there is more of me
I have not yet survived into.
How do you soften
toward something
you were taught to survive?
How do you pour tenderness inward
when the vessel leaks
through every crack
someone else carved?
—
And still, love persists.
In the smallest, most defiant ways—
in the decision to stay one more night.
In the quiet forgiveness
that slips in unnoticed,
like fog through an open window.
In the body, despite everything,
continuing to reach
for warmth,
for connection,
for something
that does not immediately undo it.
—
Love is a contradiction
that refuses resolution,
a force that builds and destroys
with the same careful hands.
It will cradle your face
and split you open
in the same motion.
It will teach you
how to be held,
and then ask
if you can survive
being seen.
—
And I stand at the edge of it—
again and again,
hands trembling,
mouth full of all the reasons
to turn away,
and still…
still,
I ache to step inside.
I push in
like shadows unfurling in the moonlight.
I want the warmth—
the kind passed from mother to child,
lover to beloved.
I want the golden light of it
to pierce through my internal wreckage
and fall—
like sun on a lone flower
tearing through concrete,
petals trembling,
yet defiant.
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