The love I gave you is yours to keep. 
It stains the air like smoke, it will not lift,  it lies in the corners of the room, 
bright and heavy as a bed of tulips. 
 
I carry no hatred, no shame, no regret. 
But I am swollen with the shape of it, a weight lodged behind my ribs, like a bird trapped in glass, flinging itself against me, again, again. 
 
I do not beg for understanding or forgiveness; the words would only fray my mouth. 
To give is already to receive, but still I am emptied. 

 
I am overly devout, but I cannot figure out what I am worshipping. 
The altar grows and shrinks, its candles gutter in drafts I cannot find. 
I kneel before absence, I fold my palms to silence. 
 
I am eager to feed you everything my marrow, my sleep, my pulse, the skin at the edges of my fingernails. I am eager to strip myself down to a kernel, a pit, a single seed. 
I am eager to offer and offer and offer, like a river that cannot stop spilling its mouth into the sea. 
 
But I do not beg. 
Not once. 
Not for water in return, not for even the shadow of your hand. 
I want nothing that can be measured. 
I want nothing that can be named. 
 
And still, you move through me. 
You bloom and wilt, red as a wound, white as salt, each petal a demand I cannot hear. 
The room sways with your absence, its walls sag under the weight of keeping you. 
 
If I could close myself like a shell, I would. 
If I could become a plain, grey stone sinking into a riverbed, I would. 
But love makes me porous, love pulls the marrow through bone, love is a fever without a body. 
 
The love I gave you is yours to keep. It will not spoil, it will not soften.  

It waits, sharp as glass in the grass, bright as a mouthful of snow, silent as a church when the last hymn has already left the air.

He says he loves me
or he said it once,
when I tried to leave.
His knees kissed the cold tile
of our small white kitchen,
his voice a trembling psalm of need.

Is this love,
or a mausoleum I’ve mistaken for shelter?
Am I trading my breath
for the comfort of his ghost?

They tell me this is right.
They smile like prophets
preaching from their pews
why would they lie?
Their voices echo louder than mine.

I had dreams once.
Bright things with teeth and flight.
A life I etched in the corners
of notebooks and night skies
but I suppose it can sleep,
for him.
He is the love of my life.
He must be.
He has to be.

I can always chase stars
some other time,
after the dust has settled,
after the vows are spoken,
after I forget who I was.

I am still young,
though time weeps from my mirror.
I could wait
but he cried again tonight,
on the floor of our pale, quiet kitchen.
He wept like the dead weep,
when the earth forgets them.

The house knows.
It leans in closer each night.
The corners darker, the silence deeper.
Even the air waits, holding its breath.

Should I do this?

Surely…
Surely he’ll still love me
this way
in ten years.

…Right?

I let my shame go not with absolution but a slow unraveling, like silk rotting in rain.
No pride left to barter, no prayers to offer.
Just the hollow hush of surrender.

And so I no longer fear death.
She comes for all with or without permission, without apology, without poetry.

I see her sometimes.
At 3 a.m.,
when the walls breathe heavier, when the mirrors turn their backs.
She peers around corners, begging for me to turn, her fingers curled
as if to beckon or scold.

She wears my face when the light slips not quite mine,
but close enough to weep for.

She has seen me unravel, kissed the ruin in my chest, and called it holy.

I have made peace with her.
With the dark.
With the ending.
With the truth
that she waits in every quiet room not as a thief, but as a witness.
And when she comes, I will not run.
I will not beg.
I will only say:
"I saw you. I knew you. I was not afraid."

Why does every lover return to you somehow?

I still stalk about you
in rooms you’ve never been,
through digital shadows
and half-lit memories
where your voice once lived.

I trace your name
in the fog of mirrors,
click through photos
like rosary beads,
each one a tiny ache,
a litany of ifs.

I scroll until my fingers numb,
searching for the shape of you
in strangers’ reflections—
the curve of a laugh,
the outline of a jacket
you once wore into winter.

I know your new routines.
The ones that don’t include me.
The songs you’ve added,
the cities you’ve ghosted through.
Even your smiles feel rehearsed now
or maybe they always were.

I haunt the timelines
like a relic looking for worship.
Like maybe you’ll post a sign
that you remember me too.

But you never do.

Still, I stalk about you
in quiet hours
and reckless ones,
when my body forgets how to be alone
without whispering your name
into the dark like a warning.

There is no closure.
Just the endless echo
of someone who once looked back
but didn’t stop.

I am the sum of every longing—
the dreamer
and the dream
made flesh.

I am the god I search for in silent hours,
the altar
and the offering
laid bare upon it.

I am the prayer,
whispered through clenched teeth,
half hope,
half hunger.

I am the beginning—
the first inhale,
the first cry,
the first breaking.

I am the end—
the final word,
the fading light,
the quiet surrender.

I am the exhibitionist.
I am the ******.
I am the mirror
and the eye that never blinks.

All that I am,
all that I will be,
begins and ends within me.

I am the predator.
I am the prey.
The claw,
the wound,
the blood between.

I am rebirth.
I am death.
The flame
and the ash.

I am the giver.
I am the taker.
The mother.
The child.
The echo,
and the voice
calling out into it.

I AM
I AM
I AM.

Toes entwined, our bodies meld into one, hot and feverent skin sliding against each other in a feverish embrace.

The heat of our small, suffocating room wraps around us like a heavy shroud, yet we cling together, defying its oppressive grip.

The air is thick and saturated with warmth and sweat, each breath an effort as the room seems to pulse with our shared intensity.

I press my lips to your damp forehead, the perspiration mingling with my kiss, and in that fleeting moment, I have never been more in love.

The taste of salt lingers on my lips, a reminder of the afternoon’s heat and passion.

My fingers trace through your hair, every touch a story of our gothic cocoon written in the silence and shadow of our small, fevered sanctuary.

In this hallowed space, where shadows dance and time stands still and the walls draped in unspoken vows.

I find love unyielding, unaddressed and unabiding.