sanctuary / battleground / ruins

We find our author this morning out of her nest, jaw set and focused, attempting to…attempt. She had sat in the static for far longer than she cared to know, lost more hours than she dared to count.

And she had wasted too many hours already thinking about that damn letter.

She knew silence would be the most likely outcome. She had accounted for it before she ever hit send. In fact, she had practically gift-wrapped the silence for everyone involved, tied it up neatly with disclaimers and exits, sanding down her own edges before it ever had the chance to land.

So this shouldn’t bother her.

And yet.

Her phone has become an object of ritual. Flip over. Flip back. Check notifications. Nothing. Set it down. Pick it back up thirty seconds later like maybe the universe was just buffering.

It isn’t her silence awakening the author’s anxiety.

The new woman owes her nothing. Less than nothing, really. The author understands that deeply. If their positions were reversed, she isn’t even sure she would answer either. Some messages arrive already detonated.

No, the problem is him.

Or more specifically:

the waiting.

Waiting to see if he knows.

Waiting to see if he says something.

Waiting to see if the silence means the letter disappeared quietly into the void, or if it’s sitting in someone else’s chest right now, unfolding her entire life one paragraph at a time.

It’s strange, she thinks, how uncertainty keeps finding new costumes.

The relationship ended and somehow she is still trapped inside the same atmosphere that made her sick to begin with. Watching for shifts in tone. For impact. For the moment the floor changes shape underneath her without warning.

Watching for, yet again, his name to light up her phone.

Life was a twisted bitch sometimes.

Her companion jumps onto the couch beside her, wholly unconcerned with the psychological warfare of modern attachment. Must be nice.

She scratches absently behind his ears, eyes flicking back to the dark phone screen for what has to be the hundredth time today.

“Nothing,” she mutters.

The word sits wrong immediately.

Because silence isn’t nothing.

I debated sending this because I knew how it would look:

another woman arriving with warnings after the relationship ends.

Classic. Still,

if I were in your position, I would want someone to tell me.

Someone tried with me once. I keep wondering why I didn’t act on it… Something about hindsight.

So here’s the facts:

Your name kept appearing the algorithm certain I must know you. Nope.

But someone else might…

You became my gut’s favorite game to keep me up at night.

And so I asked and so he said: No.

Quick. Too quickly.

After that, everything sharpened. Missed nights. Unanswered calls. Plans dissolving halfway through them.

I’d tell him something feels wrong and get back pictures of nothing instead of answers.

Meanwhile, future plans. “I love you.” Phone plans. Kids coming home.

My name still married to his in his phone

You know, I had just written the book on sniffing out rot

while I had been teaching he had been studying what made my axis tilt

That’s the part I need you to understand.

Nothing about it looked over.

I kept asking. Carefully at first. Then cared less with time

And yet— my questions stayed simple:

Just tell me if you’re coming home. Just tell me what this is.

He said what this is is not for him anymore.

What the fuck does that even mean? After that, I asked once, clearly: is there someone else?

Note this reply, I’m asking about you:

Clearly. Loudly. Offendedly. “No.”

Which is interesting, because innocence rarely arrives with theater lighting.

Listen, I am not asking you to leave him. I am not even asking you believe me.

Maybe you already know. Maybe he told you everything. Maybe I’m arriving with information you unpacked weeks ago.

If so, apologies I guess.

I’ll disappear as much as anyone can, you know how this town can be

But if there’s even a chance you don’t know he moved you into a haunted room I couldn’t stay quiet.

Witness failure is an intolerable action.

And maybe that sounds dramatic…

until you realize how many women die because another woman decided discomfort wasn’t worth risking.

I’m just doing my part— anti-recruitment.

The Sister (Ex)Wives Club. We already have hoodies. The membership process seems unnecessarily traumatic.

That’s all this is. Not revenge. Not possession. Not me fighting for him.

I’m fighting for the woman standing where I stood without realizing the floorboards already gave way.

And before you decide what to do with this, let me draw you the blast radius:

My house? Now his. My car also his.

My stability still brushes against his moods in ways I’m desperate to sever.

So know if this detonates, his shrapnel rips through me first.

Still, here I am. Still, I hope I’m wrong.

I hope years from now this message feels ridiculous to you.

I hope you never hear these warnings in your own voice.

Self-crowned "Southside Legend" I don’t think it works that way But whatever

If you're such a beloved figure what are you doing here?

Most of your jobs are on that south end, your excuse for never being home, remember?

Your best memories favorite houses—oh! don't forget your bullshit crown.

Get out of my town.

I cut my teeth here I'm remembered by others outside my head

This really is a small town same strangers every morning same bartenders every Friday

same trucks same ferry line same waves same roads

You sit long enough somewhere people remember your face

Funny thing is I never saw yours until after we met now you’re everywhere

Get out of my fucking town

I see your truck and roll my eyes there you are again

parking lots gas stations grocery stores our old haunts

like this island copies and pastes you every few miles

I mean, dude— this isn’t your fucking town

You really think everybody knows you

couple drinks a few jobs people recognizing your truck and suddenly you’re some local legend

That’s cute

Being recognized isn’t the same thing as mattering

This island remembers everybody

especially the ones desperate to be remembered

the barstool version the customer service version the loud laugh big personality buy-me-a-round version

that doesn’t make you important just familiar

and small towns are full of familiar men

You confuse being tolerated with being admired

Small towns catch on eventually

Get the fuck out of my town.

I am not leaving empty handed, the author repeats the thought again. It’s been the mantra rolling on repeat since everything finally collapsed. She paces the too-small space, determined to find the memory, the lesson, anything that survived the most recent wrecking ball that swung on her world.

Too much time— too much hurt to leave with nothing.

Her eyes flick past that stupid treat on the headboard, refusing to consider it even once mor—

Her gaze locks on the mirror on his side of the room. She had emerged from her comfort hoodie today, and after a long shower of self-care, she looks more like the living version of herself—or rather, she thought she had…

The woman looking back at her was hardly woman at all. The sheer toll the last few months had taken on her had never been more stark than that moment in her simple tank top. A slight twist to the side and she sucked in a choked gasp at how clearly her ribs stood out through the material. She dare not bother lifting the shirt for a “better” view.

The jeans she had sworn were brand new hung off her hips as if they couldn’t bare the touch. She knew without even trying her belt would be of no use here.

Taking in the horrifying alternate angles, a thought springs forward, uninvited, “Look at that, we’re leaving less than empty handed.”

A loud crash fills the room and glass shards litter the bedroom floor. Our author walks away smiling, completely unbothered by the looming consequence of the next seven years after everything else.

you weren’t there not really

you said you would be and that meant you wouldn’t be

care for me felt like a chore something to get through something to check off

it didn’t matter what I did it landed when it was convenient for you

but in the middle of that your ex-wife became my best friend

she asks if i’m okay and waits like the answer actually matters

she says the thing even when it lands wrong and when it does she comes back without being dragged there

she can be sharp not cruel just— unfiltered enough to leave a mark

I fucking love that.

we don’t let things sit and call it nothing

we say it we deal with it we come back

when you ended it i told her and she stayed through the talking through the silence she didn’t rush it didn’t try to fix it

just sat in it with me even when it wasn’t easy for her to hear

we talk about you sometimes not like before not like it decides anything

just facts just history just— you as it relates to us and then we move on

she’s stubborn I can be worse

we don’t always land things clean but we don’t leave

we don’t disappear mid-sentence we don’t pretend something is nothing we say it we own it we come back every time

losing you sucked i won’t pretend it didn’t

but when people ask what it was like to love you?

your ex-wife is my best friend

Our author greets the day with shaking legs and bile burning her throat, but she barely registers either. How could she, when her mind had spent the night attacking her? Her memories—their memories, but she was not in them.

All night, she was made to watch all her favorite moments from the early days of their time together play out…with another woman. She watched the same charm that pulled her under make another girl swoon. She heard the very words she had cleverly strung together to make him laugh hit, and saw the woman’s eyes glow at her accomplishment, just as she knew her own had. He swooped this other one into his arms to dance when it started raining, watched his lips form the words she’ll never forget because he designed it that way, and she watched this other woman fall just a hard and fast as she had to the playlist of those specific songs that fall sharp and lethal now.

And it made her sick.

Physically. Wretchedly. She heaved into the trash can all night as she was bombarded with her favorite memories—her proof of what was real not a whole day before— and watched helplessly as they were twisted into daggers and plunged into her repeatedly.

From her nest, that coveted corner of the couch, she looks around the space they made home together, looking for anything that didn’t somehow have his mark on it. Her eyes land on that damn rice crispy treat tacked to the headboard, and the note next to it, the playfully scrawled “You dropped something” morphing into something much less cheeky the longer she stares. She remembers the uncertainty she felt about their future when she wrote it. The relief she felt at his easy laugh and warmth when he saw the two things back on the headboard.

The rage rushes back to the surface and she’s on her feet and at the bed in a flash, intent on ripping them both down. Her hand stops just short of contact. She can’t seem to push through, like her own skin refuses to touch the lies made physical. Or her heart refuses to let her remove the totem of what they had, still determined to keep something that proved even a moment was real—that this wasn’t all nothing.

With a sigh, she returns to the couch, the treat and note still proudly in their spot.

I gave you everything 

every weak point  every prior hit  every place I don’t heal right 

you didn’t miss it  you learned it  mapped it clean  called it love  and then you used it 

my hope was twisted  given new shape  just as lethal 

cruelty  mixing pain  with words of love 

I don’t accept 

look at your hand  still on the hilt  making sure it stays 

you look at it  like it’s wrong  like it doesn’t belong  like I’m trying  to hand you something  that isn’t yours 

I can barely say  “You hurt me”  in case it transfers 

“No I didn’t.”  coldly said  with a jarring lack of shame 

you walk away  like nothing happened  like there’s nothing here  like I’m not still in it 

while again—  my blood soaks the ground 

but I’m not one  to die quietly 

“You call this love?” 

yes, there it is how dare I question your truth 

no longer blinded by your bullshit I see the pattern I somehow missed

louder  harsher  again  belittle 

what comes next  I can admit  I hold a share of blame 

I handed you the gun  I even let you  put it to my head  inviting trust  not Russian Roulette

The author wakes, and without needing to think about it—same pain. Great.

She moves through the morning—coffee, couch, companion, the quiet hum of a routine that still holds even if everything else doesn’t. Heavy. Familiar. That part holds, until it doesn’t.

It doesn’t arrive as something new. It lands in the same place, branded deeper. The suspicion was already there—quiet, inconvenient, easy to step around until it wasn’t. Guess that’s the thing about gut feelings.

No, it isn’t new. It’s confirmation. Not just in what he said, but in what followed—words placed elsewhere, ugly versions of her that don’t match the one sitting here. That part settles quickly.

That isn’t love.

The day opened still grieving what was lost. It closes with grieving what was never had.

She doesn’t chase the thought. There’s nothing left to chase. It settles quickly, like something that’s been waiting to be acknowledged without interruption.

Her companion watches from his usual post, unbothered by the shift, as if nothing of consequence has occurred. In a way, he’s right. The routine hasn’t changed. The sequence still plays out the same way.

But the absence of confusion registers immediately. The questions that had been looping, stalling, softening the edges—gone. New questions—the kind with serrated teeth—take their place.

She reaches for her coffee, already knowing the outcome before she takes the sip. Still wrong. She stares at it for a moment, then pushes herself up and walks it back to the microwave without comment. It hums to life again, performing its role with the same level of reliability everything else seems to operate on.

“Of course,” she mutters, leaning against the counter as she waits.

Her companion appears at her feet, tail flicking with quiet expectation. Not for her. For the routine. For the next predictable step.

“Yeah,” she says absently, glancing down. “You’re consistent, at least.”

The microwave dings.

She retrieves the cup, returns to her spot, settles back into the same corner, same posture, same space. The movement feels automatic now, like her body has memorized the sequence and is no longer asking her for input. She takes another sip. Steam touches her face, and something in her quiets.

Her companion jumps up beside her, circling once before settling in, as if the space belongs to him more than it ever belonged to either of them. He blinks up at her. She blinks down at him. After half a moment, he lets out a ferocious yowl.

Shit.

“Yep, food. You’re absolutely right. I’m going,” she assures the mighty thing.

— morning musings of a mind managing misplacement

Our author survived the dreaded weekend. We had every faith in her, of course, but she was reasonably doubtful going into it— and every moment through it, but that’s besides the point.

We find her sitting at her computer, tucked into her nest in the coveted corner of the couch. Her book is open in it’s program, she’s come prepared with her notes and pens and she’s laser-focused on— oh no, his chair.

She refuses to think about the past couple days, afraid her brain will jump straight to the thought she refuses to think again. Instead, she stares at his chair and wonders what he told them about her absence. She had a role to play, but as before, he wrote her out. She almost hoped he was decent about it, giving just enough to be understood, withholding his sudden confusing disdain for her, but she’d heard how he spoke of the ghosts he left in his wake. And having the aura he did, she’d heard how everyone just believes and agrees.

He’ll point to the ghosts and say, “Look at them, they lost it,” but never show the map that got them there. It’s easy to judge the aftermath when you were the architect of the explosion. Not all manipulation is loud. Sometimes it’s silence, withdrawal, moral performance—slow erosion, then blame for the collapse.

She continues on this train of thought as she picks up her coffee to take her first sip— derailing that train of thought immediately, crashing and leaving no survivors. She blinks at her coffee, so sure it was just steaming, then walks it back to the microwave with a sigh.

Her companion is already there, waiting just off to the side of the microwave, tail flicking every which way.

“Yeah? how’s that report going?” she mutters to the thumbless menace, rolling her eyes so hard she swears she saw God.

-morning musings of a mind mitigating madness

The author wakes and, like the last two days, within moments reality crashes into her like a tsunami. Destructive. Catastrophic. Annoyingly, it’s the only way he’s shown up consistently in months.

She pushes herself up out of the coveted corner of the couch, her eyes briefly flicking outside to gauge the time before the lack of caring brings them back to the same spot she stared at for what very well could have been hours the night before: the rice crispy treat pinned to the headboard. Such a ludicrous thing for anyone else to see, but to her… It was the symbol of their lives joining.

His “❤️ Me” scribbled on the foil wrapper is what has her eyes locked. She knows it wasn’t a lie the whole time, and she’ll die on that hill. But she can’t seem to place just when it started lying. The timeline he gave didn’t add up, but he wouldn’t let her get a word in to try for clarity.

He’s done, his feelings, end of conversation. Efficient, huh?

The door burst open, jarring her back to her nest. Her companion pauses when they lock eyes, taking in her swollen eyes and general melancholy vibes, flicks his tail in annoyance, and trots to his food bowl— which she already had filled, of course. He’d trained her well.

Her companion had come back later into the Rupture Day™, but only for a moment. She’s not ashamed to admit another devastating breakdown when she watched him run off for an adventure. But he’s been good about checking in on our poor author.

He finishes his food— for now, while he waits for it to magically replenish— and returns to duty, jumping up in her lap and settling in for more tears to rain down. As his purring starts, she breaks, hugging this beautiful soul he brought into their lives and remembering she had to face him tomorrow.

And she hated him.

Or rather… She so badly tried to.

— late night longing for loneliness to leave

The author sits in the same spot she woke in…hours ago. Her gaze is fixed on the same spot on the wall they landed on hours ago. She reviews the facts again, running through them over and over. He isn’t here. He won’t be here. He doesn’t want to be here anymore. That part is settled now. Final in a way that doesn’t leave room to negotiate with, even if she keeps trying to find it anyway.

Her eyes finally shift, like there will be new answers a little to the left. It just changes the angle of the same thing. The space doesn’t offer anything different. Once hers, now riddled with evidence of the life she entwined hers around, it’s almost cruel in its display of how much she’s lost. Traitor.

She still doesn’t move, but her mind won’t still. It jumps—pieces of yesterday, out of order. Things said. Things that didn’t line up. Things that were facts yesterday, now suddenly fiction. Questions that show up fully formed and go nowhere. Anger cuts in, sharp and immediate, bringing a plus one, something heavier.  No RSVP? Fucking rude.

It isn’t chaos, exactly. Just… unstable. Like nothing lands long enough to make sense of it. She finds herself reaching for something larger to hold onto, something that might make it feel less specific, less personal. Like maybe this is just how things go. How something can be real and still end without warning.

She abandons that thought, absently filling a food bowl for a companion she was fairly positive she was inhabiting the space with, but her certainty gets hazier by the day.

— afternoon attempts of adapting to this aching apocalypse

The author starts a new day without finishing the previous one. It wasn’t for lack of trying; the exhaustion was present and accounted for from the start. Somewhere along the way, all trace of her nemesis, Hope, was ripped from the space she’s been inhabiting. She realizes, belatedly, that maybe she needed her old foe more than she had realized.

And that pisses her off.

She finds herself considering integrations, and how no matter how careful the system is—how well it’s built, how thoroughly tested—a virus can still slip past the firewall.

“It’s just you and me, dude,” she calls to her companion as she moves to fill his food bowl. “Good thing we’ve apparently been practic—”

She cuts herself off as the realization lands: her companion hasn’t been home in a few days.

She almost laughs because there’s something almost funny about loneliness making you not register when you’ve become completely alone. She fills his bowl anyway and returns to her post. Talking down the devil on her shoulder would be an all-day affair.

What a long year this week has been, she sighs to herself.

— early explanations and endings of empty embraces

To the piece of me

I’ve never forgiven,

I know that you know

the depths that I’ve sunk to—

we don’t have

that kind of currency

left

to keep risking it

like we do.

How many times

do I have to drag us

back from the edge—

half-alive,

hands still shaking,

heart split open

and handed back to me—

before you stop

calling it a chance

and recognize it

for what it is.

I wish I could cut you out.

Not because you’re weak,

but because you don’t know

when to stop reaching

for things

that have already proven

they will take

more than they give.

I don’t get it,

because I know

you don’t forget—

what it feels like

to be trapped,

how long it takes

to claw your way back

into something

that even resembles

whole—

how every inch forward

costs something,

how nothing comes back

the same shape

it left in.

I know you remember

the air,

how it never quite fills

your lungs right again,

how that breath was bought,

not given,

paid for in ways

we don’t get to forget,

and I made sure

when we got out

it couldn’t be taken again.

and still

you reach back.

You’re the danger to this system.

Not out there.

You.

The part that opens the door

after I’ve barred it,

that calls it love

when it starts to look familiar,

that mistakes quiet

for safe,

that hands me back

a breaking heart

and expects me

to make it hold.

I’m the one

who has to live

with what comes after—

the rebuilding,

the stitching,

the slow return

to something that works—

while you’re already

looking over your shoulder

for a reason

to go back.

So no—

I can’t cut you out.

I can name you,

I can hate you,

I can trace every ruin

back to your hands—

but they’re mine.

Same pulse.

Same breath.

Same body

we inhabit.

So I don’t get

a clean break.

I get this—

you reaching,

me rebuilding,

over and over,

until one of us

finally learns

or we run out

of anything left

The author remains curled into the coveted spot on the couch, eyes fixed somewhere beyond the wall like it might eventually offer something useful. The night didn’t end so much as… continue. Time passes. She does not interrupt it.

It’s interesting, she notes, how quickly something can become… nonessential. Not intentionally. Just quietly deprioritized. She pauses, then decides that’s fine. She’s never been particularly good at doing anything quietly.

Her gaze shifts, sharpening just slightly as something more active settles into place. “Get ready for some noise—” she starts, turning toward her companion, expecting the annoyed flick of his tail.

The space beside her is empty.

Now that was new information, she thinks.

−morning musings of a mind measuring mettle

The author sits in a space that feels… different with the extra presence. Not wrong. Just unsettled.

Her mind wanders, as it tends to, to the weight of a person’s presence on a larger scale. How much space someone actually occupies. Not physically. Just… their general them-ness.

As she ponders auras and room capacity, her companion walks in like he owns the place, pauses in the center of the room like it’s a stage, and settles in with the kind of confidence that suggests he has never once questioned his role in any environment.

“Oh, the ego,” she mutters, eyeing the being that can’t even manage basic grooming.

— gloaming glimmers of a girl grappling with glimpses