whoreder

i only ever feel calm when he’s near. it’s like the air softens somehow, like everything stops pressing so hard against me. the noise in my head quiets just enough for me to breathe. when he’s gone, the world feels too sharp, every sound too close, every thought too loud. i try to fill the space he leaves, but nothing fits right. i keep checking my phone. when he speaks, i feel anchored. when he laughs, it’s like something unclenches inside me. i hate that i need him this much, that my peace feels borrowed from his presence. but when he looks at me, really looks, it’s like he’s reminding me that i still exist outside of my fear. i think that’s what love can do, make the unbearable a little quieter. maybe one day i’ll learn how to hold that calm on my own, how to find safety that doesn’t depend on anyone else. but for now, it’s enough that he’s here, that he’s real, that in his silence and warmth i can finally breathe without flinching.

he speaks like his words are worth more than mine, each sentence dropped heavy between us, as if i should be grateful just to listen. when i try to answer, his smile sharpens, soft on the surface but cutting all the same. he carries himself like the world belongs to him, like i am lucky to stand in his shadow. and still, i love him, which makes the hurt sharper, a quiet ache that settles in my chest. i begin to shrink without meaning to, holding my tongue, lowering my eyes, folding myself smaller so he won’t notice the ways i fail to measure up to the man he believes himself to be. he tells me what i should think, how i should move, as if i am something to be corrected. when he looks at me, it feels like he is measuring, waiting for me to fall short. every word from him is a reminder that he believes he is higher, brighter, more whole. i try to keep up, to stand beside him, but it feels like chasing the sun with bare feet.

his brown eyes stay with me long after he’s gone, the way they linger when he looks at me, heavy and certain. the smoke curls around him, and i want to step into it, to be close enough to feel the warmth of his breath. when he laughs, something inside me aches, sharp and unshakable, because i want to be the reason his mouth curves that way. i watch the way he moves, lazy and unbothered, as if nothing could touch him, and i want to know what it feels like to be held by someone who carries the world so lightly. i want to tell him that he fills the quiet spaces in me, that his eyes make everything else fade, but instead i just sit there, watching him exhale, hoping he’ll see the way i’m already burning for him.

the air is heavy with heat, the faint sweetness of sunscreen lingering on my skin. asphalt breathes beneath the sun, soft and shimmering, carrying the hum of a season that feels endless yet already gone. i walk through it slowly, the world glowing with the aftertaste of long days and sleepless nights, cicadas buzzing like static in the distance. the ghost of summer clings to me, in the smell of chlorine, in the salt crusted at my ankles, in the way my hair still holds the warmth of sunlight. everything is too bright, too golden, as if the earth itself is trying to burn the image into my eyes before it disappears. and yet, even as i breathe it in, i feel the edges unraveling, the promise of autumn pressing at the corners, waiting to take it all away.

the water is no longer warm, but she does not notice. it laps weakly against her knees, the surface a mirror of her pale skin, rippling with the slow movements of her fingers. her book rests heavy in her hands, the pages curling from the damp air, each word a soft weight pressing into her chest. she reads as if the letters themselves can hold her steady, as if the story can keep the edges of the world from fracturing. steam no longer rises from the water, but the bathroom feels suspended, quiet except for the faint drip of a faucet somewhere behind her. the walls lean closer, shadows folding in on themselves, breathing with her. she traces the words with a trembling finger, slow and deliberate, afraid that if she looks up the moment will shatter, and she will be forced to remember the room outside this porcelain sanctuary. time stretches and bends, minutes dissolving into the smell of soap and damp hair. her skin prunes, and still she reads, half afraid that if she moves, she will fall into the sharpness of the day, and the spell of this suspended moment will vanish like smoke. outside, the world waits, bright and loud, but here she is quiet, floating in the fragile cocoon of water and paper, a girl who refuses to leave even as the cold presses up against her ribs.

how do i beat my therapist at her sick little games

the first week feels like walking into a play that’s already started, everyone else knowing their lines. the hallways smell like paper and coffee, and the air hums with voices that don’t belong to me. i take notes in the margins, little drawings and half-thoughts, pretending i’m keeping up. the professors speak like they’re reading from a book i’ve never seen, and i nod anyway. outside, the trees are just starting to change, leaves curling at the edges like they’re tired too. i carry my bag from one room to another, a small weight against my side, thinking how strange it is to be learning and lost at the same time.

the backyard is a quiet graveyard of cicadas and june bugs, their cracked shells like fragile relics scattered across sun-warmed earth, whispers of a vanished summer. once they sang in shimmering choruses, wings catching light like shards of broken glass, now they rest in silence, caught between fading life and dust. cicada husks cling to bark like fading tattoos, pale and peeling, while june bugs curl in slow, tender decay beneath the soft weight of heat and time. i watch them with a curious tenderness, as if their broken beauty holds a secret song, an elegy for innocence slipping softly away on warm, endless nights.

i knew it was over when you told that story and i didn’t care how it ended. i nodded, smiled, said “that’s crazy” at the right part, but i was thinking about dinner or laundry or maybe nothing at all. i knew because the silence between us stopped feeling warm. it used to be comfort, now it’s just a waiting room. i knew when i started feeling lonelier next to you than when you were gone. when i stopped reaching for your hand without noticing. when the little things that used to make me soft started making me tired. but i stayed. because leaving felt like too much paperwork. too many boxes and conversations and tears i didn’t want to earn. so i stayed and told myself we were just going through something. i stayed and laughed at your jokes. i stayed and kissed you goodnight. i stayed and disappeared a little more every day.

don’t flatter yourself cowboy, i was looking at your horse.

it began with heat, slow and creeping, seeping beneath the folds of my robes until my skin ached for air. the candles flickered low, their wax curling like fingers, their flames leaning toward me. the air thickened with a sweetness i couldn’t name, like fruit left in the sun, bursting in its skin. when i closed my eyes, i saw nothing holy. only mouths parting, soft and red, only hands sliding over silk, only the press of breath against my neck. the saints in their gilded frames seemed to look away, or maybe closer. the beads slipped in my fingers, smooth and damp, each one a pulse. i thought of the stories i was told as a girl, the ones about angels falling, but they never said how gentle the fall could feel, or how much you might want it. i felt the halo tilt. i let it. another feather loosened, drifting down my back like a touch i almost recognized.

there are days i am sure my chest is full of birds, wings brushing against bone, too restless to sleep. and there are nights when the air inside me turns to ash, when i want to break every cup in the kitchen just to hear the sound. i can be so gentle it hurts, folding love into little paper boats and sending them across the sink water. and i can be the opposite. i can hold my breath until the sky looks strange and unfamiliar. i have carried warmth to people who could not even say my name right. i have turned cold and watched the frost spread. i think it is the same thing, really, to love someone so much you could dissolve, or to hate them enough to disappear first. both burn, both keep me alive.

i’m always kind of slipping away. not in a dramatic way, just in that quiet, half-awake way where you stop replying and let the world go on without you. sometimes i don’t even notice i’m doing it. i just drift. cancel plans. stare at the ceiling. walk slower. play the same song over and over and let it say things i don’t feel like putting into words. i think i like the idea of running away more than actually doing it, just imagining what it’d be like to leave all my stuff behind and start over somewhere nobody knows me. no pressure. no catching up. just soft mornings and new streets and no unread messages. i don’t hate my life or anything. i just get tired of being in it all the time. it’s easier to float than to feel everything. easier to pretend nothing’s wrong than to explain why i always want out.

i started pouring vodka before noon, told myself it was for the aesthetic. clear in a teacup, a soft blur to the morning light. it made everything feel cinematic, like i was the sad girl in a french film who never really learns her lesson. the days slipped by smooth and sleepy. grocery stores felt like liminal spaces. i moved through it all with my head tilted, my smile a little slow. people called me mysterious, but i was just a little drunk. it wasn’t a spiral, not exactly. more like a soft decline. a decision made in half-steps. my phone stayed on silent. i forgot how much time passed between waking up and sundown. the world stayed loud but i stopped listening. sometimes i wondered if anyone could tell. other times, i hoped they couldn’t. i drank before i needed to. before anything even went wrong. it wasn’t sad, not on the surface. it just became part of the weather. mornings felt too sharp without it. i liked the hum behind my eyes, the way things softened at the edges. i could float through conversations, nod when needed, laugh on time. but i wasn’t really there…. not in the way people are supposed to be. i remember staring at my own hands and thinking they didn’t look like mine. once, i watched a stranger cry and felt nothing. another time, i smiled at my reflection for too long and didn’t recognize the expression. there was always a glass nearby. always a reason not to stop. even when i tried, the silence it left was unbearable. i don’t miss it. but i miss not feeling everything so clearly. i miss the fog, even if it was killing me slowly. i miss being a ghost in my own story. it was easier than living in it.