(I called this chapter adoration because that is what it felt like. I noticed the smallest things about someone and carried them with me. A look. A voice. The way morning light touched their face. I could make a whole life out of a moment. But “before I knew myself” tells the other half of the story. I knew how to pay attention to someone else. I knew how to imagine what they needed and how to give it. I didn’t know how to ask those questions of myself.
When you are still learning who you are, love can feel like a place to find the answer. You see so much beauty in another person that you begin to believe being close to them will make your own life beautiful, too. You give them your light and marvel at how brightly they shine.
The feelings in this chapter were real. So was the hope. I can look back with tenderness for the woman who wanted to be close, to be chosen, to build something lasting. I can also see how much of herself she hadn’t met yet. That is why this chapter is called adoration (before I knew myself). It holds the beauty of loving someone deeply and the ache of realizing I was still waiting to be known by me.)
stay close.
Stay with me
feel me
all of me
(I wanted someone to stay close enough to really know me. When I say “feel me,” I mean more than touch. I mean understand the way I think, the things I am afraid to say, the tenderness I carry, and the parts of me that are difficult to explain.
“All of me” is the hope that I can be loved without having to edit myself first. That I don’t have to become easier, quieter, softer, or less complicated just to be kept. I want to be known as I am.)
the pull.
This feels stronger than love.
Than me.
(Looking back I have realized that it wasn’t always love that overpowered me. Sometimes a person can take up so much space in your life that you begin to mistake the size of the feeling for the depth of the love. What felt stronger than love was the fear of losing the feeling, the need to be chosen, or the hope that another person can fill a place inside me that I didn’t know was empty.)
dripping.
You opened your mouth
and honey gathered
on my tongue
(This is about how desire can live in the body. I was so drawn to someone that everything they said seemed sweet to me. Some of that sweetness came from them. Some came from what I hoped they would say.)
hold onto me.
I dreamt of us in the morning light
Our bodies entangled in the clouds
Illuminated by the outstretched hands of the sun
(I was dreaming of a life with you. Soft mornings. Long years. A place where loving you felt almost sacred. I wanted what we had to be bigger than ordinary life. So I lifted us out of it. I made us otherworldly. Maybe because I needed to believe we were.)
how the body begs.
I stretch.
I crawl.
I make my way to you.
(I wanted to be close to someone so badly that I kept finding a way toward them. First I stretched, reaching as far as I could. Then I crawled. At the time I didn’t realize how much of myself I was willing to give just to get there. I never did. Eventually, I would have to get up.)
in spaces I inhabit.
Every empty room
knows how to become you.
(There are times when someone is gone, but my mind keeps finding them everywhere. I walk into an empty room and remember how they sounded there, where they stood, or how I felt when they were near. Suddenly the room doesn’t feel empty at all. That’s what I mean by “every empty room knows how to become you.” Their absence has a presence of its own. I can be alone and still feel as though they have followed me in.)
see me.
I see you
in the morning light
and I wonder if you see me too
(Morning light feels so sacred to me. In it, I noticed your face, your presence, the small details that made you beautiful to me. Then I wondered if you looked at me with the same attention.
“Do you see me too?”
I wondered if you noticed who I was when I was beside you. This poem holds that quiet uncertainty. I could see you so clearly and still not know if you ever truly saw me.)
suspended.
I could stay here
in your laughter
unaware
(Your happiness reached me before I had time to question anything. Your laughter softened me. It made the moment feel safe, warm, almost complete. For a little while, being near you felt like enough. I could forget the question I meant to ask. I could forget that I had felt lonely beside you the day before.
“unaware” is the part of me that wanted to stay inside the moment. I wanted to keep listening to your laughter instead of looking too closely at everything else. I was happy there. I don’t want to pretend I wasn’t. But sometimes I could stay inside one beautiful moment for so long that I stopped noticing what the rest of my life felt like.)
familiar.
I recognized you
before I understood why
There were places in you
that already felt like mine
(I think I recognized someone before I understood them because I was still trying to understand myself. There were feelings I had carried for years without naming them. The need to be chosen, the fear of asking for too much, the hope that closeness could make me feel at home. When I sensed even a trace of those feelings in another person, it felt like we had already met somewhere deep inside my life.
I found places in them that felt like mine because I brought my memories, my needs, and my hopes with me when I looked at them. I didn’t know which parts we truly shared and which parts I was hoping they would hold. I only knew the feeling of recognition. It made me want to get closer, as though knowing them might help me finally know myself.)
the healer.
Can I reach inside you
and take away
everything that causes you grief?
(There is tenderness in wanting someone to be free of pain. There is also a quiet belief that, if I love them enough, I might be able to make that happen. The question at the beginning matters, Can I? I wanted to help, but I was asking for a power no one has. I could be beside someone in their grief. I could not take it away with my hands.)
at your feet.
You bloom in me like spring
Shine brighter still
I’ll grow beside you.
You are the fruit of the earth.
Let me eat from your fingertips
and rest at your feet.
(This poem begins with the feeling that someone has brought spring into my life. I want to grow beside them, but my adoration slowly changes my place. I see them as the fruit of the earth, someone who could nourish me. By the end, I am resting at their feet. The longing is real, and so is the moment I begin to place them above me.)
the body makes more room.
I give you
the last of me
my body
makes more room
(I wrote this from the exhaustion of giving everything to someone and still finding more to give. Each time I believed I had reached my limit, I moved another part of myself aside. I made room for another apology, another chance, another hurt. I thought this was love. I didn’t realize how much of me had suffered to make room for you.)
becoming you.
I thought
I might become you
your body moved
and mine obeyed
(I wrote this from the desire to become so close to someone that there was no longer a space between us. I thought surrender was the deepest form of intimacy. If your body moved, mine followed. I mistook obedience for connection and the loss of myself for love. There was comfort in letting you lead because it relieved me of having to hear my own voice. Your wants became easier to recognize than mine. I wanted to become part of you. I didn’t understand that every time my body obeyed, I moved a little farther away from myself.)
before I begin.
I wait for you
in the morning
before I begin
at night
before I let myself rest
(I arranged my entire life around someone’s presence.Before I could enter my own day, I waited for you. Before I could release the day and rest, I waited again. You became the doorway between me and my own life. I didn’t realize how much of my time belonged to you, even when you were not there.)
rooms.
Every story you told
became a room
I moved
my things in
(I believed the life you described to me so completely that I began living inside it. Your words became places I could see myself in. I filled them with my trust, my plans, and the person I thought I would become beside you. I made a home inside every promise, never asking whether you intended to live there too.)
thirst.
let me drink from your lips.
give me life.
(I believed your love could restore something in me. I wasn’t only asking to be kissed. I was asking you to make me feel alive, to pour into the places where I felt empty. I gave you the part of me that kept me alive and hoped you would return it.)
i take shape.
I am clay.
I took the shape of your hands.
(I was soft with you. Open enough to be shaped. Every touch, expectation, and disappointment left an impression. Slowly, I became someone formed by what you needed from me. When I finally looked at myself, I could still see your fingerprints.)
your arms.
I wait for you by the door
you pick me up
all consuming
I disappeared into your arms
and call it being held
(I waited by the door, ready to be chosen. When you gathered me into your arms, I felt wanted. I mistook being consumed for being cared for because both made me feel completely surrounded. I called it being held because that felt safer than admitting I had disappeared.)
surrender.
live inside me.
take control.
(I wanted a closeness so complete that I would no longer have to carry myself alone. I opened every part of me and invited you beyond the boundary between love and possession. Giving you control felt like rest. If you lived inside me, I would never have to feel separate from you.)
wake.
You lie there
Warm, unaware
Your nose to the ceiling
I crave you
(I watched you rest, unaware of how fiercely I wanted you. Nothing extraordinary was happening. Your warmth, the angle of your face, the quiet rise of your body, those small, ordinary things undid me. You were simply lying beside me, and still my hunger moved through me, deep and aching, as if wanting you were the only thing my body knew.)
the bottom of you.
I have descended into your familiar eyes
to the bottom, where there is no light.
This is where I stay.
I do not want to come up for air.
(I went willingly into the deepest parts of you. Your eyes were familiar, so even the darkness felt like somewhere I belonged. At the bottom, I could no longer see myself clearly. Still, I chose to remain. I mistook losing my breath for the depth of my love. Coming up for air would have meant returning to myself, and I wasn’t ready to leave you there.)
my light.
I placed the sun
behind your head
and marveled
There you stood
wearing all my light
and I adored you for shining
(I made you radiant in my mind. I placed everything bright within me behind you and mistook its reflection for something that belonged to you. I stood in the shadow of my own light and adored you for glowing.
I didn’t understand that the brilliance I saw in you had come from me.)
i was. i was.
I was beautiful
because you said I was
I was ugly
because you said I was
(I let your voice become my mirror. When you admired me, I felt beautiful. When you rejected me, I became ugly in my own eyes. Nothing about me had changed except the way you chose to describe me. I gave your words more authority than my own reflection.)
next chapter: unhealthy habits (I lick my tears and sharpen my teeth)
