Something Beautiful After

I didn’t expect to want again. Touch had become a memory, a ghost I nodded to in passing—familiar, but too far.

Then you walked in like a secret I didn’t know I was still allowed to want. Not loud. Not demanding. Just sure.

Your hands didn’t ask questions—they knew answers. Like they’d waited their whole life
to map this skin I’d buried under silence.

You kissed me like it wasn’t a reward, but a right—like you’d earned it just by seeing me
and staying.
Staying when I trembled.
Staying when I burned.

This isn’t a rebound.
This is a rise.

There’s something holy in how you undress me—not just my body, but the layers I kept hidden even from myself.

With you, it isn’t just passion—it’s permission.

To want.
To ache.
To feel everything again.
Lips like an offering.
Fingers like truth.
Breathless doesn’t mean broken anymore.

You don’t heal me—you remind me I’m already healing. That I’m not ruined, I’m ripe.

And now—now I know the difference between being needed and being wanted.
And God, you want me. Like fire wants air. Like night wants skin. Like I want you—with everything I was once afraid to give.

© 2025 Shawn Oen. All rights reserved.