Hunger

I have memorized the weight of absence,

the hollow space where hands should have lingered.

I ache in quiet rooms,

my skin whispering your name to no one.

I am starved for the warmth of a touch,

for fingers that trace me like scripture,

that map the parts of me I never dared to show.

I am a garden untended,

wilting for rain I was never given.

I dream of lips that pull me

into a storm I’ve only imagined,

of bodies pressed together

until the hunger inside me moans

in relief and surrender.

I long to be claimed without shame,

to tremble under someone’s certainty,

to be ravished and adored

in ways I learned to only fantasize.

Each night I curl into myself,

shivering in the memory of what never was,

yearning for the hands

that might finally set me ablaze,

that might finally make me whole.