a space for the words I never said out loud.

the silence between them stretching wider than the bed.

She has tried to explain it—

the loneliness, the ache of feeling unseen—

but her words always dissolve before they reach him,

lost to work, to coaching, to the glow of his phone.

She gets fragments of him, never the whole of him.

And still, she aches for his attention—his touch—

anything that feels like choosing.

So she moves in the only way she knows he’ll feel.

She shifts closer, pressing her naked body against his back,

hoping the warmth of her skin can say

the things she can’t.

Snaking her arm through his,

her fingertips draw slow, lazy circles around his navel—

a soft, aching plea: see me… please see me.

She whispers his name, voice thin and needing.

She tells him she wants him—needs him—

and it’s the truest lie she knows,

because what she really wants is to matter.

He turns to face her, gathering her into his chest.

The shock of her bare skin beneath his fingertips

floods his system,

something animalistic stirring awake.

His lips crash against hers like waves pounding rock,

pulling a symphony of moans from deep inside her—

sounds breaking free before she can stop them,

before she can remember how raw she’ll feel

when the moment ends.

She tugs at his sweats—

frenzied, breathless, already undone—

letting her body speak the words

(by @thoughtflow_)

I circle my pain—

bird’s-eye,

swooping close,

glimpsing its edges

in the blur of my periphery,

sometimes death-circling above it,

waiting for it to move.

I brush against it,

wrestle and tumble,

tangle myself in its limbs.

Other times

I only sit beside it,

silent.

It fractures me in slivers,

or rips wide-open wounds.

It presses heavy on my chest,

pounds against my heart.

It drapes itself over me—

a damp cloak of anxious sweat.

It starves my hunger,

paralyzes thought,

leaves me numb,

bedridden.

And still—

it insists on being

more than pain.

Protector.

Teacher.

I’m ready to let go.

Gently, I push my floating pyre into the open waters—

watching as it carries away

my care for what others think,

my fear of rejection,

my terror of being too much, or not enough,

the ache of loneliness

and its whisper that I don’t belong.

The further it drifts,

the lighter I feel—

relief washing over me like tidewater.

I draw my bow,

dip the arrow into the fire,

and, with steady hands, release.

I stand watching as the flames drift farther,

until only a single ember remains—

a speck of chiaroscuro dividing water and sky.

That’s when I turn and walk away.

Back to myself.

To the place where I belong.

To the one who has stayed through every leaving.

I vow, quietly and surely,

never to turn from her again—

to meet myself with the same

unconditional love

WHEN THE BREAK CAME (Expanded)

Over time,

he grew colder.

My touch began to infect him—

or that’s how it felt,

as though my presence burned,

as though love had turned contagious.

I called him on it.

He denied it.

And so began the nightmare—

the one I couldn’t wake from.

Whispers found me first.

Rumours.

Hands held with another girl.

Sightings.

Her name floating through small-town air

like a curse I couldn’t outrun.

He denied those too.

And still, I stayed—

believing him, disbelieving myself,

madness threading quietly through my mind

like smoke in a closed room.

Then came the email—

forwarded, accidental,

proof spilling through a glowing screen.

Her words to him.

My name nowhere.

That was the moment

the world split open.

I went a little mad.

Hysterical.

I called him, demanding the truth,

and he came.

He said they were “just friends,”

but he needed time.

Space.

To figure out his life.

No promises.

No timeline.

His voice was calm;

mine, shaking.

Each word was a step on thin ice.

Crack.

Crack.

Crack.

Until I fell through—

into freezing water,

the shock stealing my breath,

my will,

my reason.

It felt like being told

I had weeks to live.

And maybe I did.

Because something in me

did die.

I became feral.

Caged.

Pacing,

screaming

until no sound came out.

Alive,

but not living.

I drifted through the days

like a phantom,

searching for what I’d lost

but never finding the door to cross over.

I stopped eating.

Time blurred.

I longed for sleep

because dreams were the only place

he might still reach for me.

But even there,

the hauntings continued—

visions of them together,

her laughter,

his hands.

It was like being forced

to watch the affair unfold,

again and again,

in the theatre of my mind.

I called him.

He didn’t answer.

Desperation coiled tight inside me—

a need, a hunger,

a plea for relief.

If there were a drug

to numb heartbreak,

I would have taken it.

Gladly.

And one night,

in the hollow of my loneliness,

I found someone else—

a distraction disguised as comfort.

For a moment,

it worked.

For a moment,

the noise stopped.

But forced pieces

don’t make a whole.

And nothing fit.

I wander the labyrinthine hallways of my mind,

pausing to study the sketches and paintings—

some finished, some incomplete—

hanging in aureate frames.

Each one rendered in its own truth:

watercolours bleeding softly into memory,

oils and pastels for their richness

and emotional depth,

charcoal smudges shadowing

the darker corners of experience.

Together they form the gallery of my becoming—

imperfect, textured, and alive.

People still ask why she stayed.

Why she didn’t run when every door to freedom stood open.

Maybe she did know.

Maybe some part of her felt the pull of something larger—

a hand on her shoulder, unseen, guiding her toward the very place that would break her open.

She called it madness. Others called it weakness. But it was intuition—

a whisper that said, not yet.

She was meant to walk through that house of pain, to burn every illusion down until there was nothing left to save but truth.

And though she died there, the woman who came after was the one she had been waiting for all along.

Call it palimpsest. Call it rebirth. Either way, she followed her knowing, and it led her home.

⸻

I want to explore the island of your mind—

to see where my messages drift,

the bottles I’ve thrown toward your shore

whenever I whisper I miss you.

I imagine them scattered in the sand,

half-buried, forgotten,

their glass fogged from waiting.

I want to be there when they arrive,

to witness the small tremor in you

when you read my words—

the ones that beg softly for time,

for something more than your hands.

I grow desperate for the tide to turn,

for you to send something back—

a sign that you, too, are searching.

But your waters stay still.

And I remain on the shore,

aching to be found,

wondering what it would take

for you to notice

I’ve been drowning

in your silence all along.

(fragment — thoughtflow)

of our half-open door,

knowing the sight of our room

would shatter him into a million more pieces?