A Prayer Against Wanting

What is this feeling?

A beautiful ache—

a blade dipped in honey.

I'm divided in two,

and I don't know what to do.

AIs he really genuine,

or is this delusion?

We’ve had our moments—

those quiet, stolen hours

where the world blurred

and only his breathing felt real.

His presence gives me reassurance, 

settling me like warm hands on a shaking soul.

His smile—soft fire.

I’ve been lured by it before,

only to find myself shivering in its aftermath.

His voice—

A dark, sweet lullaby I should resist,

the kind of melody sailors died for.

Tie me to masts made of my own fear,

pack beeswax into my thoughts,

because he is temptation incarnate.

And his touch—

God, that touch—

it grips, it claims,

it wraps around old wounds

like it knows exactly where I break.

My heart leans toward him

with the hesitant hope of a survivor

who still flinches at kindness.

My heart stumbles toward him,

and my walls—

once iron, once unbreakable—

quiver like the last echoes

of Jericho.

I tell myself, "Trust No Man"

I whisper it like a spell

meant to keep wolves out of my chest.

I know how seducers move—

how sweetness is just smoke,

how kindness can be a trap

with roses hiding thorns.

I know how gestures can be bait,

how illusions dress themselves as men.

Men can be magicians,

pulling affection from one hand

while hiding betrayal in the other.

Don't fall.

Don't mess up again.

Don't be naive.

Don’t repeat the past.

Don’t dig your own grave

and call it love.

Yet here I am,

unravelling.

Doing everything I swore I’d never do.

I am slipping—

slowly, dangerously, willingly.

I'm falling again. 

Falling not with innocence

but with a terrible hunger.

I hate the descent.

I hate how deep he feels.

I hate that I want him

with a desire sharp enough

to cut through old wounds.

I tell myself no,

but my heart hums yes

in every quiet moment.

I’ve bled too much to trust easily,

but his presence is loosening the stitches

I placed over old wounds.

I’m falling not like a woman in love

but like someone being pulled

toward a familiar fire

she swore she’d never touch again.

I do not know what sleeps inside him—

whether he is a lighthouse

or a shipwreck,

a safe harbor

or a siren song.

If he is real,

he will prove it—

not with pretty phrases

but with presence,

with steadiness,

with eyes that do not dim

when he sees the shadows I carry.

He’ll stand with the ghosts

that haunt my ribs

.and not run.

He’ll make me wrong

about the monsters I’ve come to expect—

or he’ll become one.

And I still don’t know

which possibility

terrifies me more.