with love, always…

i. My Love is an Ocean #love ii. For Jane with Love #j  iii. Girlhood Daydreams #girlhood iv. Coffee Cups with My Angel #a v. Silly Little Proustian Moments #imy vi. Haikus to La Lune #moon vii. Musings on Bookmarked Pages #books viii. Nature and Sensation #sensations ix. Bonfires and Wine Nights #wine x. White Coat Chronicles #labs xi. Hello, Poetry My Old Friend #poetry xii. Film Reel Nostalgia #film xiii. A Life to Remember #hope xiv. For the Love of the Game #play xv. Sweet Things and Nothings #sweet

She is the art, poetry, and the softest melody prophesied. She is the moon conquering the night as gracefully as the sun in the daylight. She blooms like the flowers in the vast garden of desire. Divine beauty, love, and mind personified. And hers is the king who met her with certainty, led her with unwavering hope, fought with her through the sunsets and the storms, and remained faithful to her book, like it was his home.

she is me, from 𑣲𝓳ane with love, always

A few weeks ago, I received a notification email about an old anonymous messaging link saying I got a new anonymous message. I thought nothing of it, thought maybe a marketing tactic to get me opening my account but little did I know my heart would jump at least a couple of times before realizing what just happened. An old friend from five years ago sending me a message hoping to catch up somehow felt like something healed inside me. I’ve loved and I’ve lost so many times over that goodbyes always felt finite to me. Back then this one felt like it too. I was too young to know it gets better eventually. I was caught up in my youth, thinking I know I will meet more people. That if it’s meant to be, then our paths will surely cross again.

I close chapters quicker when stories unfold too fast, when the plot gets thicker and I couldn’t catch up. I fold away old books or books I have finished reading and hide them or pack them in storage boxes whenever I leave home. This year I left home again for the first time in two-ish years, chasing what’s left of that youth I had five years ago when I had much hope and too little cynicism. My old habit of packing away everything I have outgrown remains.

And I know leave a lot for someone who constantly and only wishes to stay. For someone who wants to take root in every place that is close enough to feel like home, I sure have the courage of a human so capable of leaving that she never even looks back the moment she choose to move forward. And even when she does, it’s always through a lens of admiration to what was. For the first time in a while, I had to ask myself again, “what is worth leaving someone for?”

A few more days later, I kept receiving more anonymous messages but one stuck with me. One that said, “I’m glad to be your friend, it was fun while it lasted.”

Unfortunately, I have not a single idea of who it could be. The last few months were filled with a series of goodbyes to so many people who couldn't man up enough to fight for what they love. And the only reason I don't look back is because I'm constantly reminding myself that my past consisted of a love that I couldn't allow myself to feel for the rest of my life. I knew I was deserving of something more and better than what anyone was giving me at that point. And my pride told me that I in fact could live without that kind of love. And I believe it too. This time, more so than before.

I'm not saying it didn't hurt when I was finally finding my way, but it was freeing enough to be worth all the heartache or double guessing if I made the right choice. I still cry on days when I grieve the good memories but I surely can't stomach having to go through it again. No one deserves to be treated the way I was, not even me. It was a drag path of constantly circling around someone who doesn't see me. And I was done.

Sometimes I think if leaving hurts this much then it must've been amazing when I was still experiencing it. But the many instances l've left this year, not one felt like a sad goodbye, every single one felt like the right thing to do. Some goodbyes were messier than others, some were quiet but certain. Luckily I don’t do revenge, because a part of me thinks being you is punishment enough. And that itself is my closure.

Nothing in the world will be worth leaving someone for but I would do it over and over again for myself.

I don't think you're much of a game, as much as a song I've found at a specific point in my life, one that I've played to myself on repeat until I memorize every word, whose lyrics find their way to me like poetry searching for the perfect harmony, whose rhythm I've danced to under the stars, whose prose I've sobbed to on countless melancholic nights, whose melody feels like a warm hug on a long day, a song that I will remember for the rest of my life. Maybe, I’ll listen to that record one more time.

“Newton was beginning to smile the moon smile, the unearthly Anthean smile, again.”

My recent obsession has been reading jurisprudence and case rulings regarding matters of the heart (void/void ab initio) after stumbling across a TikTok video featuring the Quioge vs. Quioge case.

“Love will always flow through our lives in this inconsistent, unknowable way, and we cannot press pause on the joyful bits, nor fast-forward the suffering. Yet, in marriage, the reality is that a person may be truly psychologically incapable for the other and it is best to sever the relationship as there is no point in trying to restore what is broken to begin with.”

Love is just as complex as a relationship can be. What are you willing to fight for? What are you willing to do in the name of love, of staying, of enduring? And what’s worth leaving someone for? At what point does staying and enduring not make sense anymore?

I always thought I was okay with struggling and enduring hardships with someone I love, I can be pretty resilient and adaptable in many of my relationships, and simply because it’s easy when you’re not alone in the act of trying to become a better partner or friend, and that you’re growing with them. But having recently argued with a friend over a seemingly trivial matter made me realize that the small acts of unrequited compromises adding up have been breeding resentment in me, enough to make me wonder if we are even emotionally compatible to keep the friendship or mutually invested to keep each other around.

It was the first time I felt my anger bigger than my love; my nurturing ways turned into rage. I found myself saying things I didn’t mean, hurtful words I wouldn’t have said about anyone I care this much about, but I was responding from a place of hurt and contempt enough to make me think revenge is warranted. One thing I learned over the years is that people can’t read minds, and that communication can save all of us the trouble, so I always try my best to be emotionally honest when I feel hurt or mistreated in the same way I find it easy to say words of affection when I truly mean it. I try to catch myself if I am projecting deeper insecurities and try to explain away why I say the things I say or feel the way I feel. And ultimately, I wanted to be understood through all of it.

But in this particular circumstance, even after multiple messages, I find his words empty and meaningless; his apology sounded more like an irritable buzzing noise that lacked real accountability and a desire to make amends. “Sorry you feel that way.” “Sorry you think that way.” It made me ask myself, does he think my feelings are so pitiful that instead of owning up to his actions, which I specifically told him were hurtful to me, he found apologizing for what I felt instead? Which is ironic because when we hurt someone unintentionally, we don’t apologize for someone else’s feelings or response to the “wrongdoing,” which are beyond our control; instead, we apologize for our actions that hurt them, our actions that are within our control.

I thought of all the ways I compromised quietly for him, the excuses and considerations I made, the faith in his capacity to be better, the ways I’d stay up just a little later than usual to spend a little more time with him, and those things not being reciprocated in a sustainable way was a wake-up call to me about how incapable this person is after all, how he lacks the foresight or consideration for my feelings, the decency to communicate the things that are important to me in my relationships. He couldn’t even answer a yes or no question when I asked him to save me the trouble and tell me if he’s going to keep doing this. And his excuse that it’s manifestly a product of circumstance told me his lack of ability to follow through on his words or the consciousness in every decision he makes. 

Back then, I convinced myself he wasn’t the enemy, it was the bad habits, the poor choices, the lack of communication, I have had my fair share of them too and I knew I was willing to change them for the sake of the relationship but eventually it wore me out. I always thought of him as someone who isn’t capable of hurting me but at that point the inconsideration was too much to bear.

And so I left, with too much of the indignity of knowing that even towards the end, I was the only one making everything work. Maybe my friends were right when they said, it should’ve ended long ago. But I loved him, so I let him be my poison. I watched myself leave no trace, track every step, and take back everything I said. I wish I could undo everything, the last two years of my life convincing this person that I was deserving of love. I wish I could take back my love, too. But it’s over now and you needed it more. Never mind, I will find my way from you.

Feeling so alone,

might as well be on the moon..

There, I’m rather free.

Show interest

Be honest

Tell them how you feel

Have an opinion

Ask to hang out again

Speak

Exist

Open your eyes in the morning

Have a personality

Be funnier than them

If I were the moon, I’d like you to be my night.

Mars, Jupiter, and —

the moon smiles at her tonight,

so brave and willing.

"I always felt like… if I stayed in one place too long… everyone would see that I’m too much. Even you. So one week a year with you… it was safe. It’s all that I thought that I could have. But I love you. I’m always gonna love you."

"I spent most of my life looking for somewhere I belonged. And believe me, I searched everywhere. But it’s a thin line between searching and running away. So after all my searching, this is what I’ve learned. Home is where you can be entirely yourself. In fact, home doesn’t have to be a place at all. It doesn’t matter where you go or what you do. When you’re with the person who loves you for you… you’re always home. Even on vacation."

— Poppy, People We Meet On Vacation (2026) Directed by Brett Haley

Even in darkness

I exist solemnly and

quietly waiting.

Found you.

Something about anger feels like madness to a fault. Could I ever be allowed to scream at people long after I've cried on my pillows? What is my temper but a savage passion eating me up every time someone pulls at every thread. Am I anger in the shape of a puppet, at the mercy of this puppeteer?

My smiles were never rehearsed, my contemptuous tongue used to speak in verses but never hate. I was trained to carry my rage politely all my life. Half-regret turns to anger when it starts questioning the whys and hows, I remembered everything, isn’t anger a sign of boundaries crossed. And you walked through it back and forth. I never had the tolerance for betrayal. And yet it keeps doing it like a second nature. You never had the gentle palms to hold my storms. You were as jagged in the same places as mine. You weren’t the strong man I once thought you were. And I am not bulletproof to your offenses either. If our lies were bricks, we would have made a temple of the gods of betrayal, the Egyptians would shy away the way we’ve kept this up for so long. We were so good until we weren’t, until we were both hurt.

And the worst of it all is that I will never know. Were you hurt in the same places as mine? Did you regret everything you said? Did you curse your own tongue and your habit of nonchalance? Did it start hitting you a week later only to realize you were waiting for an apology that will never come? I rarely get over my anger as easily as I would my melancholy. And I couldn’t look at you without hating myself.

I was never bitter until you started feeding me love that was forced to ripe because we were running out of time, it made my tongue numb and apathetic. I was never quick to my rage until your love felt like a lie, a semblance of sunset on the beach, but never the real thing. Your words started tasting like poison when they’re begging for me. It knocked me out of my rose-coloured glasses, and I see you for who you are. Your life is riddled with your impoverished ways of coping, the high chair of your doom and despair, you are the character in a book you read two years ago, just as strange and pathetic, and ultimately helpless in his own words. The worst thing about playing pretend is that when the curtain falls off, you were never interesting after all. And I was the fool who loved a man for his potential. I look back without a stop and regret you in every step, all the time. Where was the man I loved? Who was the man who kept me sane? Where is the gentle man and his patient ways? Who were you before your fears took over and you started holding back? Did I lose you somewhere along the chase for our nonexistent future? Did you change your mind when the going started getting rough? Where is the man that I loved? Please bring back the man that I loved.

Pick up where we left

the memory trails

just like the very first time.

I wish I didn’t have to keep starting over and over again. It’s been exponentially difficult moving forward when I’m rough around the edges now. But otherwise still a clean slate. I wish things turned out differently, I wish endings weren’t finite. They say the only way of becoming is to meet the deepest and darkest part of your soul, it’s to sit with your uncomfortable truths, it’s to honor who you are despite your mistakes. And giving that same grace to someone else. Zadie Smith said, "I think the hardest thing for anyone is accepting that other people are as real as you are.” The good and the bad, they all make up our jagged but otherwise interesting personalities and life is a paradox you have to live through. But on some days, if you’re lucky enough, you get to decide to carry the good things with you, the joyful bits and the sweet memories. Isn’t that wonderful? “Isn’t it wonderful that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?” just like how Anne used to say.