mae

There is a kind of hunger that doesn’t live in the stomach. It hums beneath my ribs— a pull, low and steady, from something I don’t let surface.

I scroll past the image, then back. I look away. Then back again. I don’t know what I’m searching for, but something in me leans closer.

I study the pattern— skin wrapped in lattice, the symmetry, the way it holds.

I watch the rope cross their skin, calm gathering across every feature.

I wonder what it could quiet in me.

I like to imagine stillness—finally. Everything inside me falling into place.

My body has never felt like home, but maybe this could show me where the walls are.

I close my eyes and picture my limbs folding into a shape of surrender. For once, it isn’t because of fear.

Here, my body isn’t something to escape— it is something finally being held.

There’s a line around my hips, anchoring me gently to myself. A weight across my chest, and it feels like peace.

I imagine someone near. Their breath is steady, mine slows to meet it.

Fingers trace along the rope. Their gaze and touch holding both a hunger and something far more tender than I’m used to.

I have never been so seen without bracing. I can feel my shame slip between the knots.

For a moment, I believe I am beautiful. Not in the way I’ve tried to be, but in the way you feel when someone shapes their hands around all you thought was unworthy and doesn’t let go.

When the ropes fall away, I am bare again. The room is still.

I don’t move. Not yet. I close my eyes and try to stay inside whatever is left.

I don’t cry. But something in me feels like it’s cracking open.

I press my hands to my arms, searching for the echo of pressure. I wind my limbs around myself.

It isn’t the same.

Still— beneath the surface, the shape of it remains.

A longing I can finally name, a space inside me I didn’t know could still be opened.

A part of me that wants to believe someone could still find something in me worth holding.