#violetletters

—the one worth every ache

You were worth every ache, every pain, every tear.

If nothing else, I’ve learned this truth: you are the kind of woman worth fighting for.

Not scraps. Not placeholders. No. You were the summit, the goal, the flame that made the climb worth bleeding for.

It was sweat burning in my eyes, patience grinding down my teeth, pruning what withered until something true finally grew.

I walked roads that bent and broke me— blisters split open, knees raw with gravel— not because they were easy, not because you asked me to, but because I needed to prove I could be the man worthy to stand beside you.

You weren’t a sketch on a napkin— you were the canvas I ruined my hands to finish. Fingers cramped, knuckles split, every stroke proof of a man stubborn enough to stay.

Every revision cut me open, but also carved me closer to the man you deserved.

You were never a backup, never a detour. You were the destination.

My salvation. My sanctuary. The home I longed for— always just out of reach, until now.

No longer a dream. Soon I will hold you for real.

And when I do, my heart will whisper what it carried through every ache:

I’ve carried you in silence, longer than I ever thought I could. A spark held in cupped hands, shielded from wind, from hunger, from my own trembling.

I want to run to you. God, I do— heartbeat hammering against the silence. But if I run too fast, I might trip, I might crush the flame.

So I wait. So I guard. So I whisper to myself in the empty hours, my chest tight, ribs creaking like a cage too small.

Don’t ruin this. Don’t rush this. Don’t lose her.

Because what if you are the one thread I’ve been reaching for my whole life?

And what if my own hands are the thing that breaks it? Every nerve electric with the terror of breaking.

So I wait— with shaking hands, afraid a sudden move will shatter everything.

(a hedge-witch’s invocation of presence)

You ask my deepest fantasy— and I tell you this truth: it’s not wild or secret— it’s like the Quiet Sky, the one that reminds me of you— that silence before dawn greets the morning, that reverent hush between heartbeats.

I want to hold you for hours— your breath, the ocean crashing against my ribs, pressing into mine— the gravity of your warmth anchoring me to something real.

Tell me everything. Tell me what you saw, what you loved, what broke you a little. Let your voice spill across my skin like candlelight over water.

Let me breathe you in— that faint trace of rain and resolve, the scent of home after deployment. Let my fingertips learn your language without needing to move.

I don’t want to own you. I want to witness you— every thought, every pulse, every flicker of soul that makes you, you.

I do not want to hear you say “I love you.”

Some words lose their shape after passing from mouth to mouth.

I can no longer trust that sound.

Spoken too quickly. As if they cost nothing to say.

I want to feel it instead.

I want to know it instinctively.

I want to hold you close, and watch your body forget its fear.

I want to feel you lean into me without hesitation.

I want you to look into my eyes and say instead:

“I trust you.” “This is where I rest.” “This is home.”

I want to witness the moment your shoulders finally loosen, like they no longer need to carry vigilance.

To see your jaw soften. Your hands uncurl.

Unbuckling your armor with trembling hands, metal striking the floor one piece at a time.

Just long enough to stop bracing against the world.

Just long enough for your breathing to stop sounding like survival.

Outside, the storm can keep raging.

Life can keep sharpening its knives against us again and again.

But here—

here, for a moment—

we do not have to survive anything.

We can simply rest.

And maybe maybe this is how I say:

Do you love me? she asked— her voice trembling between fear and hope.

I paused, the way she once did, eyes lifted to the sky as if it might answer for me.

How do you measure what refuses to be held?

Like the smell of rain on concrete— not sought, but welcomed.

Like the ocean breeze cutting through desert heat— uninvited, but welcomed.

Like the quiet between missions— when I finally breathe and think of you.

And like them—

I do love you.

But even then…

not the way the world insists it should be, without the hunger they mistake for proof.

I don’t need to possess it to feel it.

-The night our spirits spoke

I sit here aching, replaying that night like rain slipping through cracked palms, leaving only cold on my skin my soul parched and drowning all at once.

The memory burns, then gutters, then flares again— a candle in a room I can’t quite enter

Do you ever wander back to that night? Or have you quietly shelved me away, a thought reserved for some distant time?

I’d give anything to know if you’ve thought of me even once, if your heart aches the way mine still does.

It feels like a dream stitched too neatly into my waking hours—so sweet I can still taste the afterglow, as if it left fingerprints on my spirit— too close to my fantasies, too sweet to be real.

Was it truly you standing before me— the one my soul had longed for all this time? Did your breath quiet the tremors in my blood, shaping fear into something softer, something true?

If only memory were a lantern, its flame a quiet light holding back the darkness clawing at my soul.

Did my confession reach you? Did my spirit brush yours long enough for you to whisper back, maybe?

This ache of not knowing… it tempers the flame, but never snuffs it out.

I signed your closure letter:

—From the boy who still thinks of you when the sky gets too quiet.

I was told writing it would dull the ache.

But seasons have come and gone, and your absence still commands gravity.

Our time was brief. Careful. Restrained.

And still I am not who I was.

There was no grand moment.

No sweeping confession.

Just your smile when you saw me. Your quiet laugh, half-hidden behind your hand. The way we lingered over nothing at all.

You treasured the gift I made you. You whispered for me not to leave even when we both needed sleep.

The pauses when our eyes met. The way we lingered a second longer than we meant to.

You promised a blessing. A chance—

when timing and structure align.

They tell me to let go. That I’ve waited too long for a maybe.

And

Maybe they’re right.

But still—

And if the cost of that moment were damnation, I would step into the furnace unblinking, bearing the memory of you like forbidden heaven smoldering beneath my ribs.

Let the devils riot— I would greet every flame with a steady smile, for I have held in my hands what they were never fashioned to understand.

And if the world cries out that I have bent my knees to a phantom— let it. They have never felt how a single heartbeat can remake the architecture of the soul, how one spark can redraw the constellations inside a life.