Warning Light

 I think of you every time I fill up my gas tank.

You used to tease me for letting it get so low—

"you're crazy," you’d say, 

half-amused, half-worried.

   

Now the warning light stays on longer than your replies.

I still let it run low sometimes,

let it dip past empty,

let the light flicker on and stay there,

just to feel something close to your voice again.

Because you’re not here to notice anymore.

Not in the way you used to be.

You’re three time zones and a thousand silences away.

I still scroll up sometimes—

read the old threads,

like gas station receipts I never threw away.

Back when you’d write just to say

you were thinking of me.

Back when your care showed up

like clockwork, like kindness

I didn’t have to earn.

We don’t talk much anymore.

The replies come slow,

small and tired, if at all,

like you’re drifting

somewhere too far to reach.

Now, I fill up alone,

watch the numbers climb,

the pump clicking to a stop.

My tank is full.

but I feel empty.

Undressed

 I didn’t know sex

could feel like anything other than

fear, loneliness, or regret.

I thought trembling was part of the ritual—

not from wanting,

but from wondering if I’d be wanted

when it was over.

I thought closing my eyes

was a form of escape,

not reverence.

That silence after

wasn’t peace —

it was inventory.

What did I give?

What did they take?

What part of me disappeared this time?

I left pieces of myself

on strangers’ hands

and called it connection.

I didn’t know

I could feel present in a moment

and still want more of it.

That being touched

didn’t have to mean being used.

That I could stay.

And then — you.

Your touch felt more like

“I want to get to know you,”

and less like

“I want to win.”

You made space for play.

You let me be 

soft and strange,

messy and sacred,

silly and holy —

all at once.

With you, I learned

that intimacy doesn’t begin at the body.

It begins in the safety

of being seen

and still wanted.

With you, I didn’t feel smaller.

I felt returned to.

Like each time you saw me,

you handed a piece back —

a laugh, a truth,

a version of me I forgot how to trust.

Like maybe I was never broken,

just waiting for someone

who didn’t flinch

at the full weight of my tenderness.

And now,

I don’t leave myself

when I undress.

I arrive.