I long for her now.
She knows who she is—
the one who stepped out of snow and early dusk,
on that last day of autumn,
and found me—
half-buried beneath my own weather,
longing for a love that had always turned its face away.
With her, that afternoon,
the air remembered itself.
My lungs unclenched their wings.
The blood began again its ancient river-talk.
With her I could sigh—
and the trees, her kin, sighed back.
Cry—
and the rain came clean.
Laugh—
and the fox, this distrusting part of me, lifted its head from the ashes.
Smile—
and the stars leaned down to listen.
To be with her
was to walk into the forest
and feel the trees,
which she loved,
recognise me, speak to me.
Her love—
a hand of warmth and mercy—
pressed to the beast of my chest,
said over and over: I see you. I hear you. I feel you. Breathe.
And I did.
For the first time since the first childhood wound—
I did.
And she too was desperate to breathe,
this precious, sacred, beautiful woman,
to draw the splinters from her own heart.
We breathed together—
freely, fully—
as if the gods themselves released us
from the long spell of being unlovable,
from not being loved as we wanted
and deserved to be.
You are loved, she said.
You are loved.
And the words took root in me,
deep as a seed under frost—
an enduring love
that will not leave,
just as my love for her
will never leave—
for how can it now,
even when the wind does.