Fragments of Cassandra

I think part of healing
was realizing
I did not want soft love all the time.

Not anymore.

Not after spending years
being handled like obligation.

I want a love that loses composure.

The kind that pins me against the kitchen counter
just to prove restraint was never an option.
A hand around my throat
not to silence me—
but to hear the sound of my need more clearly.

I want to be looked at
like something devastatingly beautiful.

Used carefully.
Roughly.
Worshipped and ruined in the same breath.

I want him to make me earn the praise.

To pull desperation from my mouth
until I am trembling with it,
until “you did good” feels holier
than every prayer I whispered
during those lonely years 
beside someone who never reached for me at all.

And maybe the strangest part is this:

I do not want cruelty.

I want surrender.

I want to feel safe enough
to unravel completely.

To let someone take and take and take
during the fever of the moment,

then gather me back together afterward
like I am the most precious thing
they have ever held.

I want forehead kisses
after bruised hips.

Hands that are possessive in the dark
but gentle in the morning.

I want obsession
followed by tenderness.

To be treated like a filthy secret
between the sheets;
and a goddess everywhere else.

Because for so many years,
I was untouched emotionally,
physically, spiritually.

and now that I have finally found myself again,
I think I want love
that leaves me breathless
instead of invisible.


Be’ahava,
Cassandra