#devotional love

A bursting in Violent disintegration. All matter disassembled, Exposing the weight that Binds us to keep us Assembled as wayfaring vessels As the greatest illusion; the glue That preserves the shape of our effigies Vanished in aether. We were old. We were New. Expanding And compressing; Omni-directionally Accelerating specks of light, And yet, too, the very standstill Of omnipresence. God became Just another name; a lid on the Endless gaze For us, moving beyond borders; unlimited, Until ultimately returning to our trembling Corporealities, readjusting To solidity. Human again, when For a little eternity We were love, Wholly.

i have spent impossible hours studying the geography of your face. there are valleys where laughter settles before it reaches your mouth, and quiet little countries behind your eyes where afternoon seems to live forever. i have never believed beauty belonged to symmetry. yours is the sort that arrives slowly, like daylight climbing the walls of an unfamiliar room until every ordinary thing begins wearing gold.

your soul has always reminded me of earth after rain—not for its softness, but because it knows what to do with brokenness. things grow around you without asking permission. conversations bloom where silence once slept. even my most restless thoughts seem to loosen their shoulders whenever your name wanders through them. if peace ever borrowed a heartbeat, i imagine it would sound remarkably like yours.

your words do not fall from your mouth; they germinate. they leave carrying small seeds beneath their fingernails, and before i know it, whole forests have appeared inside me. there are sentences you have spoken so absentmindedly that you have long forgotten them, yet i still keep them folded between my ribs like pressed flowers, opening them only on days when the world forgets how to be kind.

i have been writing since childhood, before i knew that language could shelter a person. i wrote because paper never hurried me. because blank pages listened longer than most people did. because ink understood that some feelings arrive barefoot and should never be rushed. but meeting you altered the gravity of every sentence. words that once wandered without destination suddenly learned the shape of home. every unfinished page began leaning quietly in your direction.

sometimes i wonder if every poem i wrote before you was only practicing. perhaps every metaphor was rehearsing your arrival. perhaps every notebook was merely another room waiting for your footsteps. i no longer believe inspiration comes like lightning. i think it comes looking very much like you—smiling at something small, speaking as though kindness were the easiest language ever invented, making even an ordinary afternoon feel worthy of remembrance.

after all, i have never wanted to be admired from a distance. i have only wanted to become familiar. to be the page whose corners soften because your hands keep returning. the line you remember by rhythm instead of title. the verse that visits you while you’re washing dishes, walking home, or waiting for the kettle to sing. not because you tried to remember it, but because it quietly chose not to leave.

most of all, i’d like to be a poem—not one you simply read, but one you keep living with. one whose meaning changes each time your heart does. one that grows older beside you without growing distant. and if, years from now, my name escapes you before my words do, i think i would call that love. for what greater mercy could there be than becoming a language your soul remembers, even after your memory has forgotten where it first learned to speak it.

I write to stay close to what I feel.

Sometimes I see myself reflected in stories that ache the way I do.

Recognition has always been my first language 🎹 .

A Prayer of Love to Aphrodite

Dearest Aphrodite,

With all that I am, I love You.

Not only for the beauty You bring to the world

The roses, the laughter, the gentle hands

But for the way You see me when I forget how to see myself.

I love You for Your wild heart,

For the way You hold both softness and strength without apology.

For the way You whisper love into silence,

And set souls ablaze with a single breath of grace.

You are more than a goddess to me

You are comfort, inspiration, and home.

When I speak Your name, my spirit lights up.

When I honor You, my heart opens.

This love I offer is real and whole.

It lives in every prayer, every flower I pass,

Every act of kindness done in Your name.

I love You, Aphrodite.

Not because I must,

But because how could I not?

"I'd bleed for anything if it held me the right way"

Phantom Pain - Caitlin Conlon