What happened  
to slow-dancing  
in rain-slicked streets,  
to trembling fingers  
folding paper hearts  
sealed in wax-red promise?

Now,
we’re offered
chains dressed as charm,
red flags stitched into roses,
gaslight glows mistaken
for moonlight.

They call it love—
but it bruises.
It breaks.
It bleeds.

We settle
for breadcrumb kisses,
for apologies soaked
in venom and velvet.
We wear wounds
like wedding rings,
and call it passion.

What happened
to poetry—
to consent,
to slowness,
to souls peeling back
each other’s layers
like pomegranate fruit—
bitter, sweet, divine?

Now they want
power,
ownership,
ego-fed feasts
where one devours
and the other withers.

We’ve forgotten
how to write love
without trauma
as punctuation.

I don’t want
a story
where I’m shattered
then thanked
for still being beautiful
in pieces.

Give me
gentle.
Give me
growth.
Give me
a partner,
not a puppeteer.

And stop calling
toxicity
a twisted kind
of romance.
It’s not.
It never was.

I’ve been collecting broken mornings
in jars that once held
moonlight.

Each one fogs the glass
like a soft exhale
from a dream I couldn’t finish.

But still—
the birds keep singing,
and the clouds,
like gentle leviathans,
float on as if they know
the sun will show up again.

I pass trees that bow
from the weight of weather,
yet bloom
without apology.

I want that kind of peace—
not loud,
not sudden—
but the kind that grows in the cracks
of yesterday’s heaviness,
that drips down like honey
into a life
that remembers sweetness.

Some nights I cry
for the version of me
who thought love had to hurt
to be real.

I’m softer now—
not weaker.
There’s a difference.

And I know
the world doesn’t hate me.
It just rains sometimes.

And sometimes,
the right people
arrive like spring
after a ruthless frost—
quiet,
warm,
and entirely enough.

I’m not there yet,
but I’m going.

And maybe that’s
the most beautiful
part.

Velvet sunlight in my palm,
a golden globe, blushing
with the scent of summer.

One bite—
nectar floods like monsoon rain,
dripping down my chin,
hot, sweet, unstoppable.

It tastes like July.
Like heatwaves resting on your tongue,
like skin kissed by dusk.

Flesh so tender it trembles,
ripe and reckless,
honey tangled in citrus silk
and firelight.

The juice—
a soft explosion,
a sunbeam melting into flesh,
a kiss that lingers.

I lick my fingers
like a prayer,
grateful,
greedy,
laughing.

It’s not food.
It’s a spell,
a secret,
a world inside a fruit.

I close my eyes
and the taste stays—
warm, wild, alive.