Sit, process.
Place your hand on your chin,  
let the weight of thought settle.  
Digest.  
Sketch the craft  
your heart desires.  

Now I see why  
it is engraved—  
Know yourself.
Shape yourself.  
Only then should love find you,  
not to complete you,  
but to complement the wholeness  
you’ve become.  

I look at him,  
then back at myself—  
we are two worlds apart.  
The small connections between us  
try to whisper,  
but my identity shouts back.  

I mistook admiration for love.  
I mistook yearning for destiny.  
I wanted to be seen,  
so I let myself drown  
in a love that wasn’t real.  

But now, I must sift myself,  
slowly, painfully, deliberately—  
pulling away in fragments,  
escaping his grip,  
even as guilt grips me back.  

I fear breaking him,  
but I am breaking myself.  
And so, I ask—  
Lord, permit me to mold  
what remains of me.