The Department of Structured Calm

Written by gardenz.of.grey

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Her:
She always wakes before him.
She keeps that quiet space because she savors the time to really hear him. His steady breath, the rhythm of a heart still deep in dreams.

She curls into him slowly, careful not to wake what she’s admiring…planting light kisses on his shoulder. She breathes him in, lets his scent settle her, studies the handsome calm of his face at rest.

There’s something special in him like this…the unguarded version. So she lingers in this moment where the world can’t touch him and he is only hers.

Him:
He always wakes after her. He doesn’t know when she stirs, only that the world feels softer before his eyes open. She always tucks her weight closer, fitting herself to him, like she’s listening for something.

He feels the kisses more than he registers them…warm, barely there, pressed into his shoulder with intention, breathing him in like he matters…like he’s something worth having.

Half asleep, he lets himself stay still, lets her think he’s lost in dreams because being watched like that…chosen in the quiet…does something to him.
And when he finally opens his eyes, he pulls her closer, as if to say: I felt you. I always do.

Written by chicandchillingreads

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I am yours.

Yours to tease at the edges of reason,
to circle slowly,
to pull the thread of my composure
until it unravels in your hands.
Yours to summon with a look,
to fluster with a word,
to hold in that charged space
between “almost” and “now.”

Yours to command into stillness,
to tilt my chin and make me meet
the full weight of your gaze.
Yours to draw color to my skin
with nothing but your voice,
to make my pulse stumble
just by saying my name a certain way.

Yours to protect—
to stand in front of when the world
forgets how to be kind,
to shield with your body, your silence,
your unspoken “no one touches
what is mine to guard.”
Yours to soften in your arms
when the day has been unrelenting,
when my own thoughts
have turned against me.

Yours to taste,
in every quiet way that means—
the salt of my tears
when I trust you enough to cry,
the laughter that bursts out of me
when you least expect it,
the sharp honesty of my confessions
spilled between us in the dark.

Yours to explore,
with hands that learn instead of judge,
with eyes that see instead of measure.
Yours to map like unfamiliar terrain,
patiently tracing every valley and rise,
every scar and shiver,
until the whole of me
is no longer foreign to you.

Yours to test,
to bring to the edge
of what I thought I could bear—
emotion, sensation, surrender—
and then hold steady
so I know the difference
between falling apart
and finally letting go.

Yours to inflict ache upon—
the sweet, slow burn
of wanting more than you give,
of being kept waiting on purpose,
of feeling your nearness
and not quite having you yet.
Yours to flood with relief
when you finally close the distance
and answer everything at once.

Yours to take pleasure from,
to read every hitch of breath,
every tremor, every gasp
as a language you’ve studied by heart.
Yours to draw reactions from
like music from an instrument,
hands sure, intent focused,
listening to every note I make
and playing me deeper.

Yours to love—
not gently only,
but fiercely,
with all the sharp edges intact.
To hold my darkness in one hand
and my light in the other
and refuse to set either down.

Yours to open—
slowly, deliberately—
until no part of me
remains hidden in the dark.
Until the shy, quiet corners
I’ve kept locked away
stand bare before you,
seen, touched, known.
Until the map of who I am
is inked across your memory
in trembling lines and soft gasps.

I am yours.

Yours to bend,
but never snap.
Yours to test,
but never discard.
Yours to bring to your breaking point,
only to gather back together
with careful hands,
reminding me that “broken”
is not the same as “abandoned.”

Yours to make wait,
to stretch time like a tight wire
between wanting and having,
teaching me the ache
that makes fulfillment sweeter.
But never forgotten—
always held in the back of your mind,
always on the tip of your intention,
even in your busiest hours.

Yours to claim,
but not to diminish.
To say “mine” in a way
that makes me stand taller,
not smaller.
To own not as possession,
but as vow:
that you will show up,
turn toward,
choose again and again.

Yours to hold tightly,
arms firm enough
to make the world fall away,
but never so tight
that my wings forget
they were made for flight.
To be the grip I lean into,
not the cage I struggle against.

Yours to set free—
to watch me step into rooms alone
with your faith still warm on my skin.
To let me roam, create, become,
knowing I will return
not because you’ve chained me,
but because this is the place
where my wildness is welcomed,
not feared.

Yours to keep close,
but never lock away.
To walk beside,
hand at the small of my back,
guiding when I waver,
releasing when I need to run.

I am yours—
in the way a flame belongs
to the one who knows
how to cup it without smothering,
how to feed it
without burning the house down.

I am yours to touch
without claiming ownership
of the person beneath the skin.
Yours to witness
without rewriting my story.
Yours to cherish
without ever forgetting
that I could have stayed hidden
and chose, instead,
to open my palms
and place my whole, wild self
into your waiting hands.

I am yours—
not as an object,
but as an offering.
Not as a prisoner,
but as a willing, breathing yes.

Written by Emily Dickinson

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Like trains of cars on tracks of plush
I hear the level bee:
A jar across the flowers goes,
Their velvet masonry

Withstands until the sweet assault
Their chivalry consumes,
While he, victorious, tilts away
To vanquish other blooms.

His feet are shod with gauze,
His helmet is of gold;
His breast, a single onyx
With chrysoprase, inlaid.

His labor is a chant,
His idleness a tune;
Oh, for a bee’s experience
Of clovers and of noon!

From: Poetry Foundation

Written by Dylan Thomas

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Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

From: Poetry Foundation

Written by the.insomniac.in.black

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Wonderland

There is something wonderful
In a breakdown
Something very pretty
In the way I drown
Something peaceful
In not holding it together anymore
If there is no one
For whom you have to hold the door
When inside you
Is only sadness
But this hurts you so hard
You just switch back to madness
And laugh your butt off
From all this stupid chatter
Getting back to normal
Is not for a mad hatter