NurseSheGirl

June 22, 2026

I nearly lost you to something invisible.
A shadow with no body.
Only the power to turn a misunderstanding
into a canyon neither of us knew how to cross.

I stood at the edge of walls that never truly existed,
convinced I had shattered something precious.
I stared into the abyss of my own guilt,
asking myself how I could have been so selfish,
while you remained on the other side,
wondering why I had stepped so far away.

It was a fracture in the atmosphere.
A bent reflection.
A sentence shedding its skin
until it no longer resembled
what either of us meant.

Your presence was warm amber light
spilling across familiar ground.
But as I stood at the edge of the canyon,
watching shadows gather in the depths.
I listened to doubt echo back at me
from walls it had no business building.

Fear is a clever sculptor.

Carving a thousand feet of distance
from a single misplaced step.
Requiring only silence as payment.

I felt the metallic taste of uncertainty
gathering beneath my tongue.
The cold weight of imagined endings
settling over my shoulders
like a heavy cloak.

Every memory of you
became a candle flickering
inside a draft-ridden chapel.

I stood vigil beside the flame,
cupping my hands against the wind,
certain the darkness was patient.

I have never known
how to approach beautiful things
with measured footsteps.

My heart is not a careful creature.
It devours horizons.
It bruises itself against locked gates.
It hears possibility whisper its name
and immediately begins chasing echoes
through unfinished dreams.

I do not casually sip connection from my cup.
I drown in it until my lungs are filled with longing.

I collect moments the way shorelines
gather driftwood and wreckage after a hurricane. 

Holding every broken piece as though I can remember where it belonged.

The cadence of a voice.
The shape of kindness.
The lingering warmth
left behind by being understood.

Taking things slowly feels impossible
when every moment arrives carrying more wonder
than I know what to do with.

Like standing at the shore
of a luminous sea,
forcing myself to wade
when every instinct says dive.

I linger beneath every star
before the morning tide pulls them away
beyond the reach of wonder.

This reality,
whatever it is,
whatever it becomes,
has rooted itself somewhere deep.

And when I thought
I might lose it,
the world developed sharp edges.
The air tasted bruised.
The future darkened at the corners.

Old fears came knocking
through the chambers of my chest,
eager to convince me
that every beautiful thing
arrives already leaving.

But they were wrong.
And as the shadows loosened their grip,
there you were.

Still breathing beneath the same sky.
Still finding each other
inside a story neither of us planned to write.

So, I am learning restraint.
Learning to let time unfold
according to its own quiet wisdom.
Learning not to rush the bloom,
not to pry apart the petals,
but to trust the flower
to open when it is ready.

But some nights,
when the moon spills silver light
across the sleeping world,
I can feel my heart pacing
the shoreline of tomorrow,
listening for your name in the tide.

Afraid and grateful for the same reason.