The year ends quietly, not with fireworks, but with you sitting somewhere familiar, scrolling through memories you did not ask to revisit. A photo. A song. A sentence you once wrote when you were sure you were becoming someone else. You thought you would feel different by now. More certain. More settled. Less tired. Yet here you are, standing at the edge of another beginning, still carrying questions you have learned to live with. This year asked a lot of you. It asked you to

In pursuit of love, you do not just chase a person. You chase their childhood. You look for the places they were hurt, hoping that if you understand the wound, you will understand them. You convince yourself that love is learning how someone broke and choosing to stay anyway. No one tells you this when you are younger. They just tell you that love should feel natural, effortless, destined. But what you learn instead is that love is curiosity. It is patience. It is sitting wit

i can still feel your kaleidoscopic eyes on me. after all, it was me who made the mistake of meeting them. under the dining table lights, those golden freckles, framed by lashes that looked too perfect to be real, undressing me. four walls, a mattress, and us eating out of takeout boxes. sharing songs, laughing at things that only made sense to us. every time i pass that park, nostalgia hits me hard. where are you now though? sometimes i wonder if you ever think of me. not th