The Dreamer's Pen

I stand before the mirror, bare. A woman. Raw.

My body, defiant in its existence, stares back at me. Feminine curves, unapologetic and soft, yet unyielding. A tight stomach, not sculpted by deprivation but by the breath I have held through heartache, by the steady rise and fall of survival.

Curvaceous hips, wide and steady, made for movement, for rhythm, for the slow surrender of passion and the powerful stride of a woman who knows her worth. Voluptuous breasts, full and warm, pressed against the chests of lovers and friends, offering comfort, intimacy, the silent language of closeness.

Strong legs, unwavering, carrying me through every moment I thought I couldn’t endure. Legs that have run toward love and away from ruin, that have trembled with desire and held me upright when grief tried to bring me to my knees.

Lips that have kissed, deeply, desperately, reverently. That have whispered secrets into the darkness, traced the skin of another, pressed against mouths that felt like home and those that never truly belonged to me. Lips that have spoken truth, even when my voice shook.

And these eyes, these eyes have seen the souls of others. Have peered past facades, past carefully constructed walls, into the raw, trembling truths people try to hide. They have recognized longing in another before it was spoken, have met the gaze of someone drowning in their own silence and understood them without a single word.

The glass has shattered around me. Fragments of pain, of love, of all that has been lost and found again. I have stood among the wreckage, felt the sharp edges of heartbreak, but I am not cut.

I should be.

I should be bleeding from every wound inflicted by love and loss, by words left unsaid, by the hands that once held me only to let go. But my heart remains untouched, tender, unruined, impossibly pure. The world has tried to harden me, to teach me that love is something to be rationed, controlled, withheld. But I refuse.

My love is real. It has always been real.

It does not demand. It does not wither in the absence of reciprocation. It lingers, stays, echoes in the spaces where connection once was. It forgives, even when it is not asked to. It sees, even when it is unseen.

I have been adored and discarded. Worshipped and underestimated. I have been held as if I were the rarest thing and then set down as if I were weightless. But through it all, I have remained. I have not turned away from feeling. I have not made myself smaller for the comfort of others. I have not forgotten that love, true love, does not ask me to be less.

And what are our bodies to become but dust?

We mold ourselves into something worthy, chase perfection, try to control how we are seen. We carve away softness, chase youth, fear time as if it does not belong to us. But in the end, this skin, these lips, these hands, these eyes, all of it will fade.

So what remains?

The way I loved. The depth of my feeling. The way my soul pressed against the world and left an imprint. The purity of my heart, untouched by the ruin of others. The truth in my eyes, the fire in my body, the softness that never hardened.

I close my eyes and listen. My heart beats. It does not ask for permission. It does not demand proof of its worth. It simply is. It carries me forward, just as it always has.

And so, I stand. Raw. Unapologetic. A reflection of everything I have ever been. A glimpse of everything I am still becoming.