An Offering in Light and Shade

There are orchids that open only at dusk—
so too, my heart.
Not for the many,
but for the hush between footstep and flame.

You, Venus, who moves through skin
like perfume through silk,
have watched me gather
what the world calls love
and render it
into something wilder.

I have tasted it—
not the sugar, but the root.
I have known it—
not in names,
but in moments that linger
long after the body turns cold.

Tonight, I do not beg.
I remember.
What it felt like
to be touched by hands that listened,
to be seen as an altar,
to be met in the marrow.

This is my spell:
a breath wrapped in rose smoke,
a gaze that does not flinch.
I offer what I hold—
softness without apology,
desire without demand,
gratitude without grasp.

Let the next arrival feel like
déjà vu in a dreamscape,
a mirror that curves like a question,
a garden with no gate.

I do not chase the lightning.
I become the storm.
And when love finds me—again—
it will not need to knock.

It will already know
the shape of the key.