Fragments of Cassandra

When I look at you,

my thoughts become a thousand birds,
frantic in flight,
wings beating against the inside of my ribs,
all questions and wonder
and all the things I have never known
how to name.

Yet somehow,
you are the sun.

The kind that warms skin
after a winter you were certain would never end.
The kind that reaches your cheeks
and asks nothing of you
except that you stand there long enough
to feel it.

And for the first time in a very long time; maybe ever,

I do.

You have soothed the child within my soul,
the one who learned too early
that love was something to earn,
something fragile,
something that could disappear
if she took up too much space.

You sit beside her gently.

You teach her that being loved
does not have to feel like waiting
for the other shoe to drop.

You make her laugh again.

You make me feel safe
in ways I never knew were possible.

You are the hearth
I did not realize I had been searching for,
the quiet glow in the window
guiding me home through the dark.

And somehow,
despite all of that,

we remain
you and I.

In your light,
I am both the storm and the calm.

My heart races toward you,
yet my spirit rests beside you.

I cry tears I cannot explain—
not from grief alone,
but from gratitude.

Because how extraordinary is it
to encounter another soul
and recognize them immediately?

To think,

There you are.

I’ve been looking for you
my whole life.

And yet,

between us stands a mountain
neither of us can move.

A truth too large for love alone to solve.
A timing that refuses to bend.
A path that asks us
to walk in different directions,
even while our hands still reach
for one another in the dark.

I do not know
what becomes of love like this.

I do not know
how something can feel so right
and still not find a place
to exist.

I only know
that loving you has made me softer.

Braver.

More open.

It has healed parts of me
I thought I would carry broken forever.

So I wait here—

in warmth,
in hope,
in ache.

Knowing this love is vast
and real
and true.

And still, 
softly,

the question wakes inside me
like a prayer without an answer;

What will become of me and you?

Be’ahava,
The Mourning Bird