YUKON

 it has been five years since i last wrote anything to myself. five years of keeping all these words rattling around in my brain like loose change. now finally, i need to spill them - because if i don't, my brain will keep playing the same old playlists of love stories gone wrong.

here's the pattern.. i fall for people who aren't great for me. some i loved too much - though, honestly, maybe i was just in love with the version of them that i made up in my head.  others, well, they looked good on paper - stable, respectable, the "parents would approve" type - but they never reached the deeper parts of me. 

and then there were the ones, who love me more than i loved them, which sounds flattering until it feels like being cast as the lead in a play you didn't audition for. because the truth is, just as i’ve built versions of people in my head, they’ve built versions of me aswell. they’ve loved the idea of me—the dream girl they projected onto the blank canvas of my existence. but ideas aren’t people. inevitably, the fantasy collapses under the weight of who i actually am.

people in my life have said i don't let them in, that my walls are too high.  but here's the thing - walls don't just appear out of nowhere. you build them after too many people treat your open heart like a tourist attraction - snap a picture, take what they want and move on. of course my walls are up there. of course my door stays closed. how could i possibly fling my door open for someone who doesn't even understand the view on the other side? i don't want someone rattling the doorknob, i want somebody who knows the password. 

so i retreated into music. for years, i have been listening to lana del rey like it's a scripture. not casually, not as background noise, but like a lifeline. her poetry became my cathedral - tragic, cinematic. i clung to the lyrics because they mirrored the contradictions inside me - romantic but ruined, hopeful but haunted, fragile but stubbornly alive. i didn't let the other voices in because i didn't want the noise, i wanted resonance. i was holding on to hope, that one day something - or someone - would vibrate at the same impossible frequency. that one day i will meet another ethereal being who understood that love is not a feeling, it's a whole damn aesthetic. 

i want genuine connections and unconditional love - the kind that sees behind mistakes and flaws and still stays and never wants to change anything about you. i want to be present and real. i want to plan future travels to unknown, but be also just as excited to come back home. 

for so long i thought these were just prayers i whispered into music. lana sang it to me when i couldn't say them out loud, lyrics holding me together when i had nothing else to grip. i followed the songs like breadcrumbs, pebble after pebble, holding on to hope that somewhere out there, someone was walking on the same path towards me. 

and against all odds - someone did.

they don't just step into my ether, they live there too. they don't just watch me glow from a distance, they burn at the same frequency. all the pebbles suddenly make sense, all the songs feel like prophecy.

for so long it was me humming the melody alone, wondering if anyone would ever hear it. with her it's different. she catches the rhythm instantly, no hesitation, no guesswork..

all those years of illusions, rehearsals, making myself little, changing myself to fit the stories, all those echoes in the dark - they make sense now. they were just the prelude leading me here. to this moment where the fireworks don't fade and the music does not stop. 

for the first time it actually feels like it's only just the beginning.

and with her, i don’t just hope it lasts—
i know it will.