floodlights

i was a river,
eager to belong
to banks that stood still
as i broke myself
trying to reach them.

you were monsoon
sudden, sovereign,
spilling into me
without asking if i could bear the flood.

i don’t know where this came from
this ache shaped like a prayer,
this love without a name
that still reads like a scripture.

when you left,
i became storm warnings and swollen sky
a girl undone
by someone who never promised
to stay.

love became a desperate chase
a hunted animal stumbling
through thorns of regret and fear,
caught between want and withdrawal,
between sacred fire and slow decay.

and yet,
somehow,
you did.

through laws, through distance,

through silence so loud,

the rhythm of my becoming thrummed like a secret

and you came back.

isn’t that absurdly holy?

i still tremble

at the thought
of what was never mine
yet shaped every soft part of me.

maybe i loved the power
before i loved the person.
maybe i loved you
before i even understood the word.

perhaps it wasn’t love,
but the illusion of orbit 
to revolve around someone
so radiant
they seem celestial.

but if you could only inhabit
the aching observatory of my eyes,
if you could only decipher
the script etched in the margins of my chest

i wish you could see
through the wet glass of my wanting
how my heart built temples
in your name
without ever saying it aloud.

                                     maybe you’d stay.

                                                          or maybe you’d still leave

but at least,
you would carry the knowledge
that somewhere,
quietly,
unreasonably,
without claim or permission,
you were loved
so much
it nearly
killed me.