the varelse

I have not been able to exist like I used to

After you left

Biological clock that does not change the hour

Always pointing at the minutes

Fixed in time and space

I ended, and you began

Days that felt like decades

Decadence of will

Sadness that seeps in through the cracks within my ribs

My heart is heavier than my body

And within it, the weight of my love is being measured

How many pounds does a broken life weigh?

I skip through the endless pages of my journal

All of them wrinkled, some torn

Beautiful blue pages, I write in pink ink

To remind myself of hope amongst sorrow

Rainbow after rain

But you rain perpetually

The day I was born was also a wednesday, I told you

And you asked me why I said this

On the next day, you abandoned me

Who was only born

The day before

Since then, time has been stuck

Nine in the morning, I was in a boat

And though you were with me

It never gave me any comfort

How do you recover from abandonment?

How do you heal from pain?

Every time I see the clock I am reminded

I cannot sleep anymore.

Morpheus has abandoned my bedside. Instead, my mind circles itself like a restless tide, and at its center... you.

Over and over and over.

There is no harbor now. No still water. No peace.

You have broken me, love. You have broken me in a way I did not know a woman could be broken.

I was warned that men were dangerous creatures, that loving one meant offering your throat to the blade.

But I was not prepared for this kind of ruin. I was not prepared to lose my heart so completely.

All I can think of is the way it felt to exist between your arms; how the world quieted there.

How sweet it was to kiss you. How your warmth surrounded me like dusk settling over skin. So comforting. So calm.

Your voice still lives inside me, soft as a lullaby through a half-open door. When you spoke, your chest trembled beneath my ear, and my heart forgot its duty.

And in these sleepless hours, my body betrays me.

I remember the weight of you, the way desire moved through us like a storm that knew exactly where to land.

The way your breath changed and hitched when you entered me; that quiet surrender, that shiver in your limbs when pleasure overtook you.

Your hands firm at my hips, at my wrists, holding me as if I might disappear if you loosened your grip.

Your eyes steady, consuming, as you moved inside me with that patient rhythm that made me believe we were eternal.

How am I meant to forget the things you whispered against my skin as you loved me?

Am I supposed to erase it? To step forward as if my body had not memorized you?

As if I had not once carried the possibility of you so deeply inside me?

Was I not your woman?

What you did to me, I do not know if time will unwrite it.

Perhaps I do not want it to.

Perhaps I will carry your name like ink beneath my skin, because what you did to me refuses to fade.

Because my own name will always remember the way you once traced it with your hands.

What do I do now with all the things you said?

When the times you told me you loved me were as countless as the stars spilled above a sleepless shore; how does an island gather back the sky it once believed in?

Your touches on my skin burn now like volcanic memory, like lava beneath the sand, my skin, that looks so calm from above.

You mapped my body with your fingers as though charting a coastline; learning the coves, the secret inlets, the soft terrain where the tide is allowed in.

And you left marks no wave can smooth.

I thought you would be the last man to ever anchor here.

I ran my fingers through your hair and drowned in its dark tide. My favorite ritual was watching moonlight rest upon your curls like silver over black water.

My favorite crossing was the narrow bridge of your nose, just to arrive at your mouth; my harbor.

I gave you the feathers of my wings the way palms surrender fronds to the wind, because I believed love meant offering the sky without asking it to stay.

But I cannot fly now.

My cliffs are quiet.

And I am alone.

I opened the deepest chambers of myself; caverns carved by years of tide, places no traveler had entered. Reserved for the right one, for the man I loved.

And I loved you, God I loved you, until my womb was full like earth after heavy rain, like soil ready to bloom your name, I gave the deepest of me to you.

Vulnerable as shoreline at low tide, I placed in your hands the last bright shells of my innocence.

There will be no other after you are gone. No one else will inherit what I laid at your altar of salt.

You were sacred to me; a god I let walk barefoot across my sand.

And I believed I was sacred to you.

My heart had learned to move like a tide beside yours, to rise when you rose, to pull back when you retreated.

Now it does not recognize its own rhythm.

A stranger inside my ribs.

The currents are confused. The moon does not answer.

Because every piece that was mine I placed into your keeping, like offerings left at sea;

and I am left with what remains

of the island girl

wind-worn, salt-heavy, still standing

And I finally saw you

When I broke in the night;

You were there the first evening

My heart was taken.

You shone your light on our skins,

Made me a daughter of Artemis, sister of Selene.

And you heard my voice when I said:

“I love you”

To him

You awakened in me

The hurricane I had guarded

For twenty-seven years;

The female hunger.

For the first time ever

I gave myself to someone else.

And all the longing felt okay

In his arms.

Echannen anim,

a i-ûr dîn naen nín sí.

Back to when he loved me

I was thrilled to be his girl

Navigating a new frontier,

I remember well

Back to when he loved me

We felt so unstoppable

There was nothing, wind nor thunder

separating us

But then someday in Autumn

Something broke within

Sliding through the thinnest ice

I saw the facade crack

And I longed, longed, longed

For things to be okay

But I know, know, know

That won't be the case

So I tried to be strong and failed

My heart caught up with me

And one night I could really see

He no longer loved me

Instead, he despised my presence

Relegated to another sphere

Fourteen degrees Celsius

On a happy day

He did not remember

I expected it as such

But I never once forgot

When at the edge of the cliff,

You stand,

Do you look down?

A flowering patch, the sea, an abyss

What do you see?

What do you feel?

Are you compelled to jump?

Life is one big hike;

Sometimes, the inexplicable pull of destiny

Brings you to the edge of a cliff.

But it is up to you

And only you

To decide how to navigate it

Sometimes, jumping is a good idea.

Other times, it is nothing but foolish

Are you a fool in this life?

Or, are you perhaps a wise expeditioner?

All we know is:

The road will tell

Of our qualities

What is the cure for sadness?

Why do I feel like

The more I hold on,

The more I lose

Why do I get hurt when I love?

Or, rather, why does someone else's love hurt me?

The word "wrong" related to my sense of self

The word "perfection" given and retrieved shortly after

The push and pull of the image of me

("An image" of me)

I come with open arms, open palms

Empty hands and bare feet

Wounded heart that never heals

Because whenever I'm close to being back

I regress, I become patient zero of the sadness epidemic

I do not wish to diagnose destiny

I leave everything to the universe's will

But maybe, by being so helpless, so defenseless

I become vulnerable to the sharpness

The bed holds his shape— creases bloom like soft echoes. I sleep where he breathed.

Kilometers,

I study your distance

the way a cartographer studies a coastline

that keeps receding.

I have become

fluent in implication,

attuned to the grammar of delay—

the long pause where you used to be.

And still, I hesitate

to name it ghosting.

That word feels too modern,

too casual

for the sacred erosion of what we had.

But I know

what silence means

when it is no longer soft.

So I say nothing.

Not because I have no questions,

but because I am beginning to understand

you are already answering them

Why twist my words, distort their frame, And cast them in a counterfeit flame— Within a vortex, sharp and spinning, Of half-truths, echoes, and false beginnings?

You trespassed where my silence slept, A home of secrets closely kept. You rifled through my unvoiced fears, The guarded thoughts, the unshed tears.

I trace the halls of memory’s art, Where once you held a kinder part. What summons you now, after years gone cold, To rewrite the past with colors bold?

Was I not there—your quiet guide, When grief and weakness would not hide? Did I not sing you through despair, When even you were scarcely there?

Yet now, another voice you send— A second Madonna to condescend. She bears disdain in cruel attire, Each word a match, each breath a fire.

Is that what’s left of me in thought? No tremble? No remorse? No second shot? Just scorn where once affection lay— No shadow of the light we knew that day?

So go—depart, and fare thee well. You've broken more than I dare tell. Not just your mask, but every hue Of unconfessed and bitter truths. The palette within you...

We spoke in sparks,

on the edge of something tender,

your words—a gate I dared not pass,

though my heart, it longed to wander.

You drew the lines with careful grace,

said, “This is all it ever can be,”

and though you dressed it up in care,

it still felt like unraveling me.

I answered not in anger’s voice,

but with the quiet ache of parting,

each word a trembling, gentle choice,

each breath the sound of hearts restarting.

You spoke of laughter, fleeting light,

and all the moments small but true,

but I can’t hold a ghost at night,

nor build my joy on half of you.

You said you saw the light in me,

the kindness carved into my name,

but only wanted company—

not love, not risk, not anything that came

with staying.

So I stepped back

though every cell still leaned your way.

Because love,

for me,

is not a game

we play

and walk away.

The two of them, I saw them

Looking at me in the dark

Under the gaze of the Moon, who loomed over a field of sylleblossoms

Your dark eyes studying me

I saw you coming, from afar

Your silhouette highlighted by Her Grace

Artemis' strongest warrior is a Man

And he conquers, conquers, conquers...

I heard your voice before I heard Her, saying

"You cannot hide forever, Princess of Solitude.

For I am made of Fire, and my Light will reach you.

My touch will burn you and brand you as mine"

You came forward with elegant strides, like a feline

Bowing your head with an evident smile on your face

Painted like the ink on your skin

Telling me of your amusement

She cast Her light over your face as you lifted your visage

And I saw them again, this time clearer

The eyes of a Man who would burn a garden

Unheard, my voice is

Lost in the wind of others' ego

Found its way into debris

That follow suit as I go

There is a wall between the Thou and I

Cold, tall, and unforgiving

It keeps me thinking all day and night

This wall, it doesn't seem to be receding

For I am reading the tone of your voice

Burlesque and patronizing

I can hear it rejoice

As I just see myself antagonizing

As opposed to being seen, or heard

Shunned, shushed, rushed

And in the quiet darkness, I wept

There's nothing truer than sadness

It truly hurts when your voice becomes transparent

And it's no longer apparent

It is surprisingly difficult

To tie a rope around emptiness.

It is even harder to impress the dead;

Phantoms have a twisted sense of humor.

Hauntingly beautiful is the landscape

Of a woman's solitude.

Precious are the tears of the good and pious,

For they turn into pearls.

To embrace what does not exist is to recognize one's madness

And for some, that equals power.

For her, it is only natural to attempt to kiss a shadow

And to give into the void every night.

It is surprisingly difficult

To hear a voice without a speaker,

And to feel a touch without a hand.

Phantoms have a twisted sense of humor,

But not more than hers.

You come hungry, so I feed you

You come sad, so I comfort you

You come lonely, and so, I am with you

You demand from me, and I deliver

But when your belly is full

When you are no longer sorrowful

When other voices fill the room

And your demands are met

You leave;

And I stand there, like an awkward tree

Like a misplaced rock

Like a mistranslated passage

I realize that I am just liminal space

I was never meant to be your home