after effects
there was a point
that night
I wondered
when it started
I’d never suffered before.
Not like this.
The smell hit me first.
Not in the nose,
but deep into the lungs,
seeping out through
the skin of my chest
They say you always remember,
the first time.
Especially with her.
There was no worship.
No idealisation.
Just… absorption.
I didn’t smell her.
Her smell became me.
A faint hint jasmine
could not hide.
A passing note of orange,
slipping under the tongue.
Saliva trickling down
the back of my throat.
In a way that circles,
already pulling.
The light in the room didn’t fall.
We were remembering
what had never learned
to separate.
Kneeling there.
There was no precondition.
No offering.
Just permission.
Permission to accept
what I had known all along.
The cave didn’t close.
The dark decided
there was nowhere else to go.
But it didn’t hide us.
Only what we were
while it held us
No longer waiting.
Already
where it began.
If my writing has slowed your scroll a little lately — if its given you a quieter breath, a softer afternoon, or a small pause away from the noise — one year paid subscriptions are currently 50% off until the Summer Solstice on June 21st.
More writing lives there.
More stillness.
More afternoons that don’t rush you anywhere.
And in doing so, you’re also supporting the writer — helping these small, thoughtful spaces continue to exist in a world increasingly designed to hurry us past them.
Step inside.
I’m always open to thoughtful writing collaborations.
Other prose and poems from me.
Nothing truly leaves — it just changes how it stays.
If something moved in you — a silence that whispered — I’d love to hear it below, or in my DM’s.
All artwork courtesy of NDjin Gallery
The jasmine trying and failing to cover that orange note... I hate that my brain went straight to a room where even the air has evidence on it, like... Sir, please let me breathe normally for two seconds.
Reading this feels less like watching a memory and more like watching someone slowly dissolve into one, where the intimacy is so heavy it almost tastes claustrophobic ✨