Ink and Breath

The sacred weight no ghosts of paid hours can buy

I stripped naked before my lover in a year of notes.
His birthday gift,
stitched together in the shadows of my empty wallet.

Written late at night,
in the cobwebbed corners of survival,
while the kids were asleep,
and the silence was louder than my self-worth.

Scraps of paper.
Folded thoughts.
365 fragments of me,
because I had nothing else to give
but myself -
unwrapped and undone.

Barely did I dare to let it go -

all because it didn’t come with a price tag.
There was no ribbon, no receipt,
and no shiny promise from a store shelf.
It felt insignificant
too handmade,
too poor.

I felt pitiful handing it over -
nauseous with shame.
I imagined him smiling shyly
then tucking it away,
forgotten by tomorrow’s daybreak

But he didn’t.

He unfolded them -
each word his daily sermon

Some were filthy -
penned with intoxication
I, weeping my longing into the page,
knowing he’d open it
with a grasp that remembered me

Some notes were silly: asking him his favourite dinosaur.
He chuckled stegosaurus -
his answer faulty-
Still, he enfolded his lips around mine

Some notes were feral: pulse your heartbeat into mine
others just a whisper:
I thought of you today -
no self-loathing unfurled

He tucked them back into the box
like they were scripture -
though they were the holy spirit herself

And all I could think was:
fuck. Shame spoke too loud, rumouring me out of bestowing; belittling me out of love.
Convinced of the consumerism lie
that which costs nothing
means nothing.

Love doesn’t need a cloak
for passion lives in the dailiness -
the folding of thoughts into envelopes,
the ritual of being chosen again and again-in ink, solitude, desire

I gave him a year of me -
exposed, aching, raw
&
it was exactly what he needed -
the sincerity of who I was.

It was not empty space -
but the universe in a breath