I am not confused about what I want. I want monogamy. I want marriage. I want devotion. I want a man who is steady in his masculinity and secure in his love. I want partnership that feels like legacy. I want children. I want structure. I want a spiritual union that is rooted, not restless. That is my North Star. But I am not rushing toward it. There is a difference between knowing your destination and trying to teleport there. I do not need to fast-forward my life to prove th

I’m realizing something about myself that feels important to name. Creativity and intimacy live very close together in my body. When someone meets me in a creative space, when they see my work, reflect it back to me, build alongside me, or feel inspired by my inner world—my nervous system reads that as closeness. Warmth. Safety. Meaning. And sometimes, my body translates that feeling into romance. Not because I’m confused. Not because I’m lonely. But because creativity has al

There is no shame in non-monogamy. Let me begin there, clearly and without hesitation. For some, it is an intentional, ethical, and deeply honest way of loving. When chosen consciously, it is not confusion. It is clarity. It is spoken early. Named directly. Held with responsibility. And that distinction matters. Because what I have witnessed, both in my own life and in the lives around me, is that confusion is often mislabeled as freedom. Sometimes what looks like openness is

There is a quiet that comes after something beautiful ends. Not the loud kind of heartbreak. Not betrayal. Not chaos. Just a soft closing of a door you were beginning to walk through. And somehow that hurts in a deeper place. Because nothing went wrong. Because it was gentle. Because it was real. Because I felt it. I keep thinking about the path that led here. How Soft Wanting arrived first. That delicate curiosity. The kind that does not grab or demand, only notices. Then c

There is always a last night. Not just of a trip, but of a version of yourself you didn’t realize you were ready to release. Lisbon held me gently. Sunlight on tiled walls. Rain in the air. Music drifting through streets that did not ask anything of me except to feel alive inside my own body. I was soft there. Open. Unfolding in ways that felt sacred and earned. And then—the last night arrived. It did not announce itself as danger. It never does. It looked like laughter. Like

I didn’t come to Lisbon looking for love. I came tired. Tired in the quiet way that doesn’t look dramatic from the outside. The kind of tired you carry in your chest, in your decisions, in the way you keep moving even when you don’t feel moved by anything anymore. I told myself this trip was just a birthday. Just a few days away. Just rest. But Lisbon doesn’t meet you at the surface. It waits. And then, slowly, it begins to soften the places in you that life has hardened. It

To a friend I showed up for fully, until I realized my steadiness made me invisible. There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from realizing you are not unseen, just unprioritized. It’s not the big betrayals that undo you. It’s the accumulation. The pattern. The way your consistency becomes assumed while chaos is treated like an emergency worth mobilizing for. I watched you show up for everyone who was falling apart. The ones who never stabilize. The ones who take

There is a kind of desire that does not whisper. It announces itself loudly in the body. Heat pooling. Breath shortening. Attention narrowing. It aches. It asks. It presses. A sexual tension so tender it feels sharp. I am here now. Wanting someone so intensely it feels almost urgent. Wanting touch, closeness, release. Wanting in a way that could easily collapse into momentum if I let it. And still, I am here, choosing not to rush. Not because I doubt my desire. But because I

I truly don’t believe we can align with our forever lovers, our soulmates, or our true life partners without first doing the work of healing. Someone once told me that a good relationship could heal you, but I think that’s false. A relationship can support your healing, it can offer safety and comfort, but it cannot be the cure. Healing is an inside job. You must first become whole. You must love yourself, know yourself, and pour into yourself before you can genuinely give yo

I wrote recently about Soft Wanting about allowing desire without gripping it, without turning it into a project or a prophecy. This feels like the next chapter. I’m experiencing someone now in a way that feels gentle and intentional. There’s attraction. There’s curiosity. There’s chemistry that doesn’t feel like it’s trying to outrun itself. And what’s surprising me most is how regulated it feels. I’m not collapsing into fantasy, even when I’m daydreaming. I’m not abandonin

I’ve been thinking about the woman I’ve become and how intentional she is. I didn’t wake up confident. I earned it. Confidence came from surviving moments that tried to reduce me. From realizing that no one was coming to save me, soften the blow, or explain my worth on my behalf. I learned to speak plainly because being misunderstood was more painful than being disliked. I learned audacity because silence never protected me. I stopped asking for permission when I realized I w

I’ve been thinking a lot about the current state of America. About the Trump administration. About what ICE agents are doing to families in Minnesota. About the segregation that still exists in Detroit. About what’s happening in rural communities, especially in the South. About food deserts. And people still say America is the land of the free, home of the brave. Where is the freedom? Freedom does not look like being ripped from your family. Freedom does not look like working

Lately, I’ve been noticing a quiet shift in how I experience desire. Not the loud, consuming kind. Not the kind that rushes me into meaning or makes me grip tightly at potential. But something slower. Warmer. More intentional. I’m learning not to rush affection. I’m learning to enjoy connection without needing to define it immediately. I’m learning that I don’t have to cling to things—or people—to feel secure. There’s someone in my life right now who has been teaching me pati

Every time I come back home, I’m reminded why I left. Not because I don’t love my family. I do. Deeply. But because loving people does not mean I can live inside the conditions they’ve learned to tolerate. This visit stirred up an anger I didn’t expect, or maybe one I’ve been avoiding. It wasn’t explosive. It was quiet, simmering, lodged in my chest. The kind of anger that asks, How do y’all live like this? and then immediately checks itself for sounding ungrateful. But I’m

I’ve been thinking a lot about ritual lately and not in a performative way, not as aesthetics, but as a way of returning to myself and returning home. After revisiting the ritual chapter in The Spirit of Intimacy by Sobonfu Somé, something inside me softened and opened. Her words reminded me that ritual is simple. It is personal. It is honest. Ritual is intention. Ritual is sincerity. Ritual is openness. It begins with knowing that everything we need already lives within us.

There are parts of me that I am still learning to look at without flinching. Parts that aren’t soft or holy or enlightened. Parts that crave, ache, cling, or enjoy things I wish I didn’t like. Parts that came from survival, not intention. I don’t judge them anymore. I just want to understand them. There was a time in my life when intensity felt like love. When someone checking for me, showing up unannounced, being territorial or possessive felt like passion instead of control

Lately, I’ve been feeling triggered in ways that caught me off guard. A familiar ache rose in my chest when I noticed old connections resurfacing. These were people who saw me at my lowest, people who disappeared when I needed gentleness, people whose judgment still lingers in the corners of my memory. It hit me. They witnessed a version of me that wasn’t my truth. They saw me in survival mode: overwhelmed, grieving, unraveling. They mistook that moment for who I was. And tha

This trip didn’t go how I expected but maybe it went how it needed to. I thought I was coming here for connection, girlhood, laughter, shared memory. Instead, I ended up spending most of it with myself. And honestly… I think that was the real assignment. I learned how to choose me without guilt. How to move at my own pace, even if I’m the only one moving. How to communicate without yelling, without shrinking, without overexplaining. I realized I can say this isn’t working for

There comes a point in your healing where you realize the past is not a place to return to, it’s a place you outgrew. Sometimes people reappear not because they belong in your life, but because they want to see if the door is still open. Sometimes curiosity brings you back to a familiar page, but that doesn’t mean you’re meant to reread the story. Recently, I had a moment of clarity: your exes are your exes for a reason. Not because they were all bad people. Not because the e

(for healing, attraction, renewal, and reclamation) There comes a moment when the heart grows tired of waiting for someone else to see its light. So you turn inward. You gather the pieces of yourself scattered in other people’s hands. You remember that you are the altar, the offering, and the answered prayer. This spell is for that moment, when you’re ready to release what hurt, reclaim your softness, and return your power to its rightful place: with you. I lost the most imp