09 The Love Issue · 9 of 12
For MarciaI never learned to love lightly.No one taught me the language of enough.I came to friendship with open palms,set my heart down like an offering,said: Take what you need. Take me.
We memorized each other’s joys and griefs,held them like precious heirlooms,polished them with attention.I guess I showed up too fast, too fully,with arms already wrapped around the future.
Women loving women as friendsis a unique kind of romance -the bone-deep Wednesday sessions,the shared sacred stories,the way your laugh became a roomwe wanted to live inside.
But love, when it has no doors,becomes a flood, need starts to sound like hunger.Drowning begins to look like distance,like unanswered messages, omitted invitations,like someone choosing air.
We didn’t mean to lose each other.We just loved past the edges of what could be held.We mistook intensity for safety,closeness for permanence,forgetting that even devotionneeds room to breathe.
I carry you gently nownot as a wound, but as proof that my heart is capableof immense, aching tenderness.Proof that loving friends this deeplyis not a mistake, even when it ends.Some friendships are not meant to last.They are meant to change us.