#mariak

but i hate that none of them are actual goodbyes.

- maria k [march 2021]

oh, but i know this pit in my stomach so well.

it pushed my hair back behind my ear and it learned the weight of my hand when i had no other company. i met with the depths of it in the tiny corners of my Asphalt blue room. i have its lingering look memorized like the back of my hand. i am well acquainted with the intensity it brings me that i have its first name imprinted in frequencies that match only the vibrato of your laughter.

i memorized the dark layers my body had to adapt, just so a little light of you could peak through. i ignore the bursting of the smallest of my veins every time i see you, because i grew fond of the feeling. i carry it all in the pit of my stomach because, what use is my chest if asked to carry the entirety of it all? surely, my lungs could not take it. and my heart is too tender to survive having you so near.

it does not sear pain nearly as much as it would to spill the tall stories you have missed while we were apart.

the pacing I know so well has picked up, adrenaline picks at my scabs now, you notice the knots becoming undone but the drinks have just been refilled for this party of two.

love takes up space. it seeks refuge. an entire kingdom of tender comfort. a safe haven for our gentleness. where my belongings rest beside yours: my coat from the first night, that I ask you never return, which finds itself intertwined with your scent now. my shoes, the ones that left your doorstep quick as I rushed through a headstart to bed, the very same pair that ran miles back again to catch your flying kisses, whenever you bid me goodbye.

home, where my heart took shelter in. home, where all of this beauty sits together collectively. where everything is completely yours to lose and mine to call. where each crevice is entirely ours. home is where i love you. and what of it? in every corner of all eight chambers of heart, our ‘I love you’s pile up on top of one another, line-by-line, section-by-section. caressed by both our fingers. twirled within the inside of my tongue and the curve of your lips. consumed. stitched. undone. begging to dance. begging to be realized. over and over again. uttered out-of-breath and in whispers. spelled out on both paper and skin. shared within embrace, sealed within kisses. exchanged in between laughters and labored breathing. only the same three words, all nine hundred thousand of them, built this Atlantis.

I knew the withdrawal had betrayed me when my surrender began to taste sweet. yet, you mock my healing, by keeping the soft spot you have for me; you ruin me by stealing soft glances, and hardly apologizing for it. my dearest, your love is tender, but it is cruel to me.

raise a glass to gin-gilded confessions, a one-night-only show of divine plans erased by first light, but I think I need to hear silver illusions, just for now,  while the drink still lingers in my system. while you still do. 

you tell me quietly I never left the back of your mind, but my dry throat forbids me an answer. no response begets a whisper and instead of moving a little closer to hear you, I bite my lip hard enough to keep myself from relearning the weight of your tongue.

I am someone. Not someone else’s. I am neither the symbol of all those who walked past them nor the embodiment of their paths. It is an insult to my individuality to treat me only as ‘another’.

Their flaws had always been flaws, yet none who had ever met them saw them any differently until I came into the picture. The dark alleys of their pasts were well-illuminated with my bright yellow light. Their imperfections were made passive. Their scars were the most beautiful, because I poured all that’s left of my watercolor. They, who only learned the language of admiration from my mouth alone.

Though my chest was torn apart with the mesmerizing love I saw, it was not shared. It bled out of my heart the moment I decided a single prickle was worth it.

They walk past me now, attempting to intimidate me as they polish themselves with leftover glitter. How dare they speak ill of me when it was my own silver that made them visible in the deep ocean. How dare they think of me as small, when every soft, careful praise I uttered formed the patterns that built the very towers they sleep in. My pen inked the blueprints of their beauty. How dare they call me less after I made them more.

I learned their ways because I understood the consequences of not being known. I took the time to resonate with them because I was robbed of every chance of the experience. I had cared for them well, because I was familiar with the exact depth of the hurt it would bring otherwise. They were loved well, because I had never been.

Had I not held their name like sacred scripture, had I not carved it gently into the silence, lifting it so it might glimmer among the unseen, they would have passed through this world like unknown spirits. Felt, maybe, but never truly known. Had I not planted flowers among their concrete scars, had I not brought medicine to the sickly deathbeds they made, they would have turned out callous. Cruel. Unkind. Bitter. And it would just be like catching a glimpse of the mirror. They would have been me.

a fool’s gold for the addict, a death row meal for the coward; bid me goodbye, or give in to me. bid me goodbye, or give me closure. bid me goodbye— or not at all. - maria k [nov 2025]