When Love Leaves Its Mark: An Introduction to The Beautiful Wound
The Beautiful Wound holds the portion of Instinctual Love where affection and ache become indistinguishable. These poems and letters live in the space after the first spark — the slow dawning of what love demands, the places where devotion and loss carve permanent shape. Here, longing is not a single ache but a map of small, honest violences: tenderness that bruises, promises that fracture, and the quiet work of learning how to carry absence.
This section listens to the voice that speaks from memory and regret, to the confessions given in the dark, and to the vows that outlast a single life. Some pieces are vows cast outward, reaching for eternity; others are private reckonings that hold the weight of what might have been. Together they show how love can wound and, in the same motion, reveal the deepest sanctuaries inside us — the places that open when something beautiful is broken.
There is a strange grace here. The wound does not only sting; it also clarifies. It tells us what was essential, what we failed to save, and what remains sacred even when a life moves on. These poems invite you to sit with that tension — to recognize that grief and gratitude can coexist, that loss can be a form of testimony, and that what aches hardest often proves what mattered most.
The Beautiful Wound asks us to hold both sorrow and devotion without choosing between them. It is a study in endurance: how love survives in echo, how memory becomes ritual, and how the heart, though damaged, continues to give and to hope.
Table of Contents – Section II: The Beautiful Wound
- We Will Last an Eternity
- In the Absence of Her Touch
- If I Could Gift Time
- Faith in Fate
- Even the Devil Was Said to Love
- My Ocean
- Where Wishes Once Lived
- When the Tide Pulls
- Wings She Never Saw
- A Vessel of Regret
- The One I Cannot Name
- A Quiet Inheritance
- If You Shattered
- Close Enough to Hold You
- When You’re Not Looking
- Passing Clouds
- What Love Reveals
- When I Make It to 80
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→ Section I: Where the Stars First Saw Us
→ Section III: Flesh Remembered the Flame
Section 2: The Beautiful Wound
We Will Last an Eternity
(a vow beyond time)
There’s no need to give yourself anxiety over a perceived future, my dear.
We can’t even predict tomorrow.
But today—and all the days before—
I’ve held you close to my heart.
You’ll always be close.
And I’ll always be near—
whether as ears to listen,
or the occasional touch of a hand,
a glance,
a pair of smiling eyes
to remind you that my promise still stands true.
We were destined to be lovers,
but our lives followed different paths—
and sometimes, along those quiet roads,
we wonder if something was lost.
So let me remind you:
I will always love you—
just as much as the first time I laid eyes on you,
through the moment we intimately kissed,
and until the end of our lives.
But our love isn’t confined to this life.
It’s the kind that will live beyond it.
It will carry on in the quiet harmony between other hearts—
in those who find peace in one another.
We have carried the love of souls before us,
and one day,
others will carry ours.
This is the truth, my sweet love,
whose name I dare not speak
for fear the world would mishandle it.
I made a vow to protect you.
And protect you I will,
until whatever cosmic doom decides to black out the sky.
And even then,
I will still reach for you—
still hold you—
because what we are made of is beyond the stars,
beyond black matter,
beyond the laws we think hold everything together.
We are the elements of chaos that both destroy and give life.
This is why our love is eternal.
It always existed somewhere else,
and it always will—
through everything that ever was
and all that will ever be.
You are safe.
And anyone who has felt the sacred bond between two
will know my words to be true:
that what is special between lovers
gives birth to something greater than both—
something that shapes the world.
Not just in the space a child may take,
but in the space love creates.
Because we don’t just live in the world—
we help shape it.
We are its rhythm,
its force,
its spark.
So believe me, sweet one—
we will last an eternity.
In the Absence of Her Touch
(a love barely touched)
There are days I don’t think of her.
And then there are moments—quiet, uninvited—
like when I sip my morning coffee and gaze into the distance,
and memory returns with the weight of reality.
She has always lived in the distance,
even when she was right beside me—
our love a fragile thing,
never allowed to breathe too deeply.
Every second of her presence felt like a gift.
Every smile, a glimpse of a life we might have lived.
Every touch still lingers—on my lips, in my mind—
like a footprint weathered by time,
yet still pointing to a path.
Though our hands met fewer times
than the fingers they were counted on,
I remember the shape of her hands,
the texture of her skin,
the beauty marks on her face—
a constellation of surprises I once traced with my eyes,
each one evoking a wish for a life that never arrived.
She is forever imprinted on my soul—
a soul I didn’t know I had
until she touched it.
A cruel wish come true.
For I cannot wake from the spellbound dream
I cast seeking favor from God—
a blessing too great,
so that I might learn how love tortures
when devout and unwavering.
She taught me to see beauty in chaos,
until time, as it always does, took its due.
The absence of her touch
has hollowed something inside me—
a space once filled with a feeling
I believed was mine to keep.
Maybe I gave it away,
not knowing I’d need it.
Not knowing it could be taken.
But I will not weep.
For there is beauty in what was felt—
and that, if nothing else,
was real.
If I Could Gift Time
(a love untouched by time)
If I could gift someone time,
I could give them a second chance
for all the moments that could’ve changed their lives for the better.
I wonder—
if I could turn back time,
would she choose differently?
Would she have smiled,
knowing she could now resist?
Would she have thrown the letter in the trash,
as I warned she should after reading it?
Or were the words
the magic and spell
she should have never seen?
Maybe she could’ve resisted my eyes
and the way we quietly spoke
on those cold mornings
where smoke is seen in every word spoken.
I fear my words
are what caused our hearts to break and mourn.
Every sound released from our breaths—
like a missing key
to a song that pleads for longing—
drove us closer.
A sound that fades after it’s played
but lingers in the heart,
where it is forever heard.
It’s as if our story
was never destined to last
beyond the spell of words
felt when it was cold and lonely.
I never got a chance to cool her in the summer.
I only briefly kept her warm in the winter
before the summer solstice
could bless our seeds to grow.
I never got a chance to whisper good morning
while awakening in a bed of roses
to a dream come true.
And I never whispered goodbye,
wishing the dream of her existence
to ever end.
If I could gift myself time,
I fear I would make the same mistakes again,
since what was true then
has always remained true,
and will always remain true.
For true love is something that transcends time
in the way light travels distances—
in ways our minds can’t comprehend
but believe it to be true.
For what we know today
is built on past truths,
of souls who persisted in asking questions,
even when knowing
they may never discover what they pursue.
Because truth and inquiry
is predicated on the pursuit of passion—
of things that spark curiosity,
with every little discovery
revealing something profound and life changing.
This is what she means to me.
She is life changing.
She is the earth I can’t abandon,
but remain grounded to—
so I may observe the stars
and the wonders of the world.
I don’t need more time
to understand this truth.
I am at peace
knowing her name
courses through my veins.
Faith in Fate
(when paths are unseen)
It’s painful because you don’t see a path.
Because it’s not time to see a path.
Have faith in fate and what is.
What is tomorrow
we can guide through our understanding
and love today.
Even the Devil Was Said to Love
(love in shadow)
I’ll be your secret.
Your safe place.
Your escape.
The one who makes you dance with the devil—
because even the devil was said to love.
My Ocean
(where depth meets devotion)
You are very special to me.
You mean more than a pretty face,
more than a beautiful personality.
You are my inspiration—
you help me see the world more clearly,
through the eyes of love.
What makes an ocean so hypnotic?
The sounds. The smells.
The air. The wetness. The sand.
The collective history hiding beneath it.
You are like the ocean to me.
I could sit with you forever.
I loved the way you sat next to me.
It felt right—like you were meant to be there.
As if the sea had finally found its shore.
But the ocean is also capable of drowning me,
if I do not respect its depth.
It is powerful even in storms.
It is beautiful, even when wild.
You’re my ocean—
and I will always admire you,
in calm, in chaos,
in the mystery beneath your waves.
Where Wishes Once Lived
(a love returned to silence)
Your name still lingers in my mouth—
a remnant of a dream
cast into a wishing well,
where sounds drown in earth,
never to be found again,
where ancient names
who once loved one another
sleep in peace,
waiting to seed the love of a wish.
When the Tide Pulls
(the strength beneath surrender)
Some days flow. Others rest.
I’m caught between the waters that pull before crashing waves,
and the weakness from trying to swim away.
Letting go—what we call giving up—sometimes saves you
when fighting the tide for too long.
Let it pull you.
You’ll need your strength for the real battle—
the one that begins when it’s time to swim back.
Or you could sink
and let the ocean claim you.
But that would mean quitting.
We have limbs to resist,
feet to kick,
lungs to power each stroke.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Continue.
Swim.
Pause and drift.
Win while losing, if you have to.
Surrender nothing, even without hope.
Maybe then, hope will kiss you.
When fate embraces you,
you can either settle,
or let it ignite something within you.
You have a choice—
a kiss of life,
or a kiss of death.
Accept.
Wings She Never Saw
(a flight imagined, a fall endured)
There was another I had before—someone I once imagined would soar with me.
Some loves teach you to fly. Others remind you what it’s like to fall alone.
It bothered me that she looked pretty in her new dress,
while I wore the old clothes from three years ago.
I had driven down roads that day which reminded me of her.
Old memories stirred feelings I thought had ceased.
Life had moved on,
but the anger I felt had slowly faded.
I suppose more time was needed.
Through the years I watched her spread her wings,
thinking we’d fly together.
Instead, I was left behind, watching,
thinking she’d return once she noticed I was injured.
Words could not be heard out in the distance,
and the echoes of my voice faded into air as despair.
It was a surrounding emptiness I could not hold,
nor wish to fold to.
I had to persist.
Love will leave you behind
if your wings no longer spread.
And if you’re blessed to fly and lift,
the wind has its own shift you must adjust to.
Fly too high, and melt slowly, unaware,
as the sun reminds you
you’re too close for comfort.
Travel too low,
and the waves shall swallow you whole.
Fly into the wind and struggle within,
or stay grounded—reachless, without hope.
Settle and sink,
and maybe something will grow.
Maybe it’s old growth,
but it’s hope.
Fly and you may die.
Settle and you may mold.
Without wings, you cannot go.
Without hope, you will not go.
Is your love worth the unknown?
How long will you wait?
How long will you know?
The sky is worth the dive
once you’ve mastered your wings.
Fly and then dive
and eat the fish down below.
Swim through the waters,
and let your body flow.
Challenge your soul—
and live as you go.
Or forever wait for wings that never grow.
A Vessel of Regret
(a confession)
How much of her time did I waste?
I knew we could not be.
I did not want the commitment—
yet I kept her close.
I wanted her close.
But only when I was adrift.
She didn’t move me like the others—
she steadied me.
And I mistook steadiness
for stillness.
She was older,
had endured more.
She felt my struggles in ways
no one else did.
Yet still,
I did not want her deeply.
At least, not always.
There were moments I did.
Every evening,
I rushed to see her—
to hold hands in the garden.
We stayed close,
hidden in the dark.
We kissed.
It was a passionate summer.
But we never danced beneath sheets.
When winter came,
we moved indoors.
We carried on our innocent passion.
The only innocence
was that we never made love.
Our desire
slipped beneath the weight of life.
I was lost when I met her—
more lost than I am now.
Lost in the way a man is
when he cannot survive on his own.
I needed love
more than I needed food.
That has always been my curse.
If I could trade my well-being
for the promise of love waiting at home,
I would.
Since I was a boy,
I’ve longed for unity and family.
For a fireplace—
for walls that held laughter
and eyes that waited for mine.
So I wasted a woman’s time.
A woman who loved me.
Because I had never learned
to build a vessel strong enough
to sail alone.
Maybe my greatest fear
has always been
to drift alone at sea.
How many hearts must I break
searching for a harbor
I never knew how to make?
How many years must pass
before I feel proud
to be who I am?
Why have I ceased to be proud?
Have I stopped challenging the tides?
Have I stopped tending the roots
that once grew green,
sank deep,
and carried breath like leaves?
I am malleable.
I am the wood.
I am the hull
and the creaking boards
of a half-finished boat—
the kind that carries souls
to unknown shores.
If my words find you,
let them drift you
far from the sands of regret.
Far from the numb sounds
of lives that stopped growing.
Let them carry you
toward the kind of silence
that heals.
The One I Cannot Name
(a memory of a past love, now drowned in pain)
The other one is dead to me.
The one whose name I dare not speak,
fearing synchronicity might merge our paths.
She was a wish granted from a cruel god—
riddled with twists
to make the skin and soul weep.
I do not think she ever loved me
the way I loved her.
I do not think she believed my words
when I told her she was the treasure of my heart.
I believed we were meant to be,
like mined stones crafted to fit the curve of a hand.
But one slipped off and was lost forever.
I was a fool for love in hindsight.
I thought she was worth dying for.
I felt the self-sacrifice a man is honored to make
when he has relinquished his heart
into the hands of someone he loves.
On days we clashed,
I could see her fading
like ripples of stone on water.
The weight of our differences sank
in each word spoken.
I felt her heart was like a stone,
dense and capable of sinking deeply alone.
She dove to depths I could not see or breathe in,
though I desperately swam searching for clues.
But on nights we wrestled then nestled,
we could clamp tight like clams on shores.
Nothing could separate us.
We were two creases sealed,
protecting something beautiful—
life—the promise of something new and true.
She was my life.
And I was her stone—
held tightly once,
until her hand released,
and I skipped into the distance.
I was unsure I could return
if I sank where she could no longer reach me.
Eventually something was lost.
What was obvious for others to see
was a blind mystery to me.
Yet I was the one living it.
Shouldn’t I have felt the bumps
of skipping stones?
Maybe I did but didn’t realize
I was never the stone she meant to keep.
I suppose when hope is all the mind has left,
it will see whatever it needs to believe.
Now that our seal has broken,
there is nothing left to feast on—
only something rotted,
after basking too long
in a sun never meant to rest in.
Maybe deep within the waters
was where our end was meant to end—
one where truth could allow us to breathe,
one where clams could return to the sea.
A Quiet Inheritance
(even the deepest cracks became the roots of something lasting)
I no longer listen for your name in dreams.
Silence now speaks.
What settles, gives birth.
What births, gives growth.
What grows are roots that crush stone.
Love will flow, as you continue to grow.
Love is eternal—
a quiet inheritance
that grows where peace is found.
If You Shattered
(a reminder)
If you shattered, every morsel
would carry the weight of your love.
Every piece with its jagged edges
would be worth the bleed in my hands.
Whatever shards I could not find
would remain hidden like a buried treasure,
waiting on the wish of someone’s heart,
as you are a love worth loving to pieces.
As relics from the past bring clues of ancient
mysteries,
so are the flames of your heart,
an everlasting memory—
for you’re an angel who has weathered adversity,
and a strength that softens edges.
Close Enough to Hold You
(a letter for her quiet moments)
Whatever you’re feeling—
it will pass.
This is only a ripple,
a tender jolt of emotion.
Keep breathing.
You have my love.
Do you have a busy schedule today?
I’ve got some work to do,
but when the day eases up
I could stop by
and kiss your hand.
I just want peace to settle inside you.
Even when I’m not near,
know that I’m close.
Always.
We share something ancient, you and I—
a rich sediment of unseen moments,
from which beauty keeps growing.
And sometimes the soul aches
for no reason the mind can name.
Let it ache.
Let it breathe.
Nothing between us needs to be forced.
Nothing needs to be fixed.
What we feel
is something timeless—
a quiet kind of truth
that needs no explanation.
I wish I could hold you now,
take the heaviness from your chest
and place it gently into my hands.
I would squeeze it in ways that soften tension.
Whatever cramp you have would become my own.
Whatever poison within you—
I would siphon it
with my lips resting on your hand.
A kiss not rushed,
not loud,
just present.
A kiss that heals.
Everything is going to be okay.
You are more than the moment.
You are stardust held together by breath—
and even your sorrow is sacred.
The rain outside is soft.
The world spins as always.
We’re here.
Alive.
Safe.
And that is something to celebrate.
Close your eyes.
Feel me kiss your hand again.
I’m here.
I’m your calm.
I’m your safe place.
Don’t look too far ahead.
Don’t fall into imagined futures.
Stay here, with me,
just for a breath.
Just for now.
And know you are not alone.
When You’re Not Looking
(a quiet letter)
Remember when I told you
there was a man near us pretending not to listen?
He was drawn in,
curious about the way we spoke—
as if our words held something rare,
a secret not meant to be heard
but impossible to ignore.
You said you didn’t see him.
You said,
“I can’t focus on anything else when I’m around you.”
And I believe it.
You never saw the room.
Only me.
Only us.
But I see everything.
I’m your eyes when you aren’t looking.
I watch the world when you drift into us.
And when your gaze softens
and your breath slows,
I become your ears—
catching every whisper the world tries to steal from you.
When you’re not awake,
I stay watchful.
Not because I expect danger—
but because I love the peace
that comes from knowing
you’re safe.
You don’t have to see everything.
You already see what matters.
And the rest—
I’ll see for you.
Forever watching,
I will protect.
Passing Clouds
(a quiet reminder)
I love you dearly.
These little skirmishes between us—
nothing more than passing clouds.
They pale in comparison
to the love I hold for you.
That’s why I can never stay mad.
You’re my angel,
my delicate flower.
And I’m grateful
to witness your bloom.
What Love Reveals
(a reflection)
Sometimes,
it’s just a phase—
the kind that lasts a lifetime.
Everyone’s got an opinion.
Don’t listen to me.
Don’t listen to anyone.
Find your truth.
Love isn’t steady.
One day you’re flying,
the next you’re drifting—
grasping for something
that used to come naturally.
In my experience,
when a woman is fed up,
there’s nothing you can do.
Maybe it’s biology.
Maybe it’s survival.
Maybe I entered your life
for reasons neither of us fully understands.
Every day, we uncover more.
Some days,
I want to push you away—
make your choices easier.
Other days,
I’d sacrifice everything just to stay.
But desire keeps me tethered,
and I wonder…
Is that love?
You ask me why I think I’m ugly.
Because I’m selfish.
Because I want to keep you.
Shouldn’t love make me more selfless?
Or are those just tricks of words?
Am I a trick of words?
Am I just a phase for you?
I don’t need answers.
But I ask anyway.
Today, I’m amazing to you.
But in ten years?
Will I still be?
What winds would carry us apart?
What storms would we weather—
and would we still choose the same shore?
You are the water to my boat.
Without your surface tension,
I’d sink.
But maybe the ache of your absence
is what keeps me drifting—
not because I float,
but because I refuse to go under.
Maybe that’s what love reveals.
That even in distance,
we’re still anchored
by what once held us close.
When I Make It to 80
(a quiet vow)
When I make it to 80,
I’m going to look into the color of your eyes
and tell you I love you—
and remind you of your colorful mind,
how it changed my days of gray
into shades of rainbows,
how I found gold
beneath the arch of your eyes
and the curve of your smile.
I’ll say it
with the same breath
and conviction
as when I first confessed to you.
It will be like the first time.
What I feel for you is timeless.
Each time I look at you—
it’s new.
Each smile—
new,
but traced with something familiar,
like the blessing in skies
that comes
with both rain and sunshine.
The Lasting Truth of Love’s Wound
The poems of The Beautiful Wound remind us that love does not pass through a life without leaving its mark. Every vow whispered across time, every touch remembered more deeply than it was ever lived, and every absence that hollows us out — these become proof that what we felt was real. This section shows how devotion survives even when paths diverge, how memory carries the weight of what could not endure, and how pain itself testifies to love’s power.
Each piece offers a different facet of this paradox. We Will Last an Eternity vows that true love outlives even death, carried forward by those who inherit its spirit. In the Absence of Her Touch reveals how a single smile, a fleeting intimacy, can echo across a lifetime. If I Could Gift Time grieves the choices and moments never granted, while Faith in Fate rests in the trust that what cannot yet be seen may still be guided by love. Even in shadows, Even the Devil Was Said to Lovereminds us that passion has always been bound up with danger, secrecy, and risk.
Together these poems insist that love’s beauty is inseparable from its cost. The very wound it leaves behind is what deepens us, what makes us see the sacred weight of connection. These are not tales of loss alone, but of endurance — of how longing can keep us tethered to what is most true, and how grief can reveal the contours of our devotion more clearly than joy ever could.
In the end, The Beautiful Wound teaches us that pain and love are not opposites, but companions. The scar is proof of the cut, but also of the healing. What hurts most becomes what is remembered best. And in those memories, love continues to shape us long after its moment has passed.