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I wasn’t learning your love language to conquer a territory you already held claim to,
but to belong in a place where hearts speak louder than what rolls from memory off lips —
those fleeting hits of dopamine that fail to sustain the beat of the drum.

I wanted the long slow burn. The texting and conversings that went on for days.
The melody that plays on long after testosterone softens or estrogen sharpens the edges of feeling.

And I tried to find that burn everywhere.

I scripted you into worn-out movies, tethered you to memories you were yet to experience,
and you barely turned up the volume.
Preferring instead to hunt music and tracks — things that would listen back to you,
or let you listen without requiring you to stay inside anything real.

And so I thought perhaps we could take up dancing,
since it was something you loved to step into —
but I couldn’t step up quite well enough to capture the constant rhythm in your eyes as it scanned the room.

And then I saw you dancing with her.

On a night you would never have expected me to walk in,
I turned on my heel and walked straight back out the door —
as quick as a spin-out in bachata and never mentioned dancing again.

I saw it.
I felt my presence had never been meant for any dance floor you would choose to stay on.
Your body was in the movement,
but your eyes only ever stayed with those unlike me.

I thought perhaps we could play cards instead.
But I finally realized the game was never fair —
because while I laid all my cards on the table, we were playing with two different decks.

You were playing Monopoly, and I was playing Bridge,
but you only ever wanted to burn the bridge after acquiring all my worldly wealth.

Perhaps if we travelled abroad —
and I took you to all the places you said you had once dreamed of:
the Eiffel Tower, gelato shops in Verona, vineyards steeped in expense and expectation,
streets lined with everything you once called beautiful —
Moulin Rouge, London, Phantom of the Opera,
and the isle of fairies where I gave you something I have never given anyone —
not even myself. A space so intimate I revealed my inner core.

And still, it was not enough
to make you love spending time with me in the way I was offering it.

You always said you loved though my art with an apron and one day you wanted a business; like a restaurant. And I gave you that. My home cooked love offerings daily inside of a business you would one day own free of me. But it required too much of you and more than I could hold on my own. The memory of the taste of goodness to your palette disappeared under the work required when I was wearing more than just an apron.

Finally, it had to be music — your first love.

Perhaps if I went to the core of it,
a voice unique to us is where “we” would finally be felt. We plotted into the line up karaoke.

For a while, it seemed you were singing Hermosa Cariño for my ears alone.
Until my voice attracted others too —
and yet I sang only for your praise.

Now the first two bars of the beat require me to abandon the melody,
as though it never truly belonged to me — let alone us.

I wore myself thin of enjoyment in the things I once loved,
because I wasn’t trying to make you love them with me —
I was trying to be loved inside of them with you.

And finally I wrote a song, and one year of building up the brave, I released it to you as a post breakup offering of peace;
and you said my talents were faked inside AI —
despite the lyrics and melody being entirely mine.
Despite the language of connection,
crafted directly from me of a story I had healed from, you said you wanted nothing to do with a past you wished never happened.

What have you written for me?
Not in a song, not in an anthology —
but in your heart?

I discovered the answer finally. You have written for me an ending wherein you have anything but love in your heart for me. A Goodbye.

I may not win at cards.
I may not always move in step with everyone else’s rhythm.
I may never be inside the film and always be the one romanticizing what is real.
I may move across the world as if every place I visit — even for the twelfth time — is still magical.
And I may sing songs others say fall short of their preferred genre.

But there is one thing I know for certain:

Very few people in this world approach everything — and everyone they love — as deeply as I do or hold love so deep it doesn’t dissipate until a gift is so carelessly rejected that you recognize that being fluent in certain languages isn’t appreciated by some.

I have never expected perfection from anyone or anything. In fact imperfect living is what is most endearing. I am no longer though allowing myself to be fluent in the art of being in love.

One that ended, at the very least, with mutual regard.

A chapter where friendship outlasted tension, where care counted for something even when things were hard.

I thought—perhaps naively—that honesty and attention might be enough to carry us through.

The hardest part wasn’t that the chapter ended.

It was how it was written.

Not face to face.

Not with courage.

Not with the dignity of a conversation where truth could exist without punishment.

It came sideways.

Filtered.

Delivered by someone I trusted to hold the pen with steadier hands.

Someone who knew how carefully I listen, how seriously I take what is said when people are tired, when they are frustrated, when the truth slips out unguarded.

I listened.

That matters.

I didn’t skim.

I didn’t dismiss.

I paid attention.

I made corrections where I could.

I carried responsibility, even when it settled heavy in my body and expelled itself, in order to avoid discomfort for you.

I am not perfect.

No one is.

But perfection was never the standard. Respect was.

I was grateful.

I still am.

I don’t erase what was real just because it didn’t last.

But gratitude was never meant to require silence.

There came a moment when words crossed a line; when frustration lost restraint, when tone hardened into harm.

And in that moment, the only way to keep my self-respect was to speak.

I said, I’m doing my best.

And I said, You don’t get to talk to me like that.

That wasn’t cruelty.

That was a boundary.

And boundaries have a way of revealing what kind of story you’re actually in.

The chapter didn’t end in dialogue.

It ended in exile; as if erasing the page, and the voice that named the antagonist, might correct the narrative.

It never does.

But that isn’t the deepest sorrow.

The deepest sorrow is that the ending didn’t come from the one who chose it.

It came from you.

From the person in this town that I believed would protect the space between the lines.

From the person I trusted to honor what we had already written.

No conversation.

No opportunity to speak.

No courage.

Just a message.

Brief.

Impersonal.

As if the story we shared had never earned a proper ending.

I am used to carrying exile.

What I cannot carry is how easily what I thought was friendship was returned as indifference.

And you’re right— it wasn’t your business.

But you made it yours.

I’m not shooting the messenger.

I know the difference.

Still, there are ways to end a chapter that honor what came before it, and ways that showcase plot twists that end without proper explanation.

This chapter has now been written.

Our book is closed.

It shall be named The Art of Being a Lesson.

You were the wind that shook my ribcage loose; the rain that washed my boundaries bare.

I held my canvas steady, even when your hands wouldn’t hold mine.

I gave you color.

You gave me shadows.

And I loved them both.

I carved you into the corners of every poem, the way we used to press into each other without speaking.

The way your silence screamed louder than my words.

The way I tried with softness first, logic second, fire third.

None of them reached you.

None of them could.

I have screamed into pillows so I wouldn’t scream into the void where you once stood.

I have whispered “please” into poems and substrates I never meant you to read.

And yet, here you are.

Still haunting the final gallery of my heart.

You were the last piece.

The final frame.

The art I kept trying to finish even when it was already complete in its incompletion.

I don’t hate you.

I don’t want you back.

But I’ll never say “ I didn’t love you.”

You were a masterpiece half-painted, and I was a gallery that finally closed its doors to all curators that fail to see the beauty in that which is not prolific in coins.

I let you go; not with anger; not even with grief; but with a knowing that some art doesn’t wish to be known.

Some art teaches you how to become the artist.

But I have learned to listen
beneath the grass.

If you knew anything about me,
you would already understand this:

My heart is not a tavern.
My body is not a prize.
My thighs and my devotion
are reserved for the one
who once stood before me like a mirror
and showed me the sacredness in my own skin.

That kind of reflection
is not given twice.
It is honored.

For three years,
I have allowed no one near me
except he whose energy was clear,
substance-free,
unpoisoned by contempt.

I refuse to let venom breathe beside me.
I refuse to invite cold blood into warm places.

I am not Eve, bending toward temptation.
I am Lilith, ancient and unbent,
guardian of my own threshold,
keeper of the gate that leads inward.

Access is sacred.
Rare.
Protected.
You were never invited.

Pretty privilege does not mean easy access.
It means my inner garden grows higher walls,
wiser roots,
and the intuition to know when a snake rustles.

And when I speak of devotion,
hear me clearly.

He was my mirror.
Not my owner.
Not my cage.
My reflection.

In his eyes
I saw the woman who would never again
crawl into places built for smallness.

So I remain disciplined.
I remain untouched.
More than 280 days now,
by choice,
because I would rather live clean and untainted
than let my focus sink
into the pit where you coil
and imagine temptation is your power.

You mistake restraint for absence.
It is sovereignty.

And you lied because you lost.
You lied because you could not face
the men who bet you would never hold me
so you conjured fantasies
to keep your fragile ego from cracking.

Delusional.
Transparent.
A serpent swallowing its own lies.

You are not the first
to want me
and fail to gain entry
and rewrite history to dull the humiliation.

You will not be the last.

But hear me as myth,
not as rumor.

A snake is always a snake.
Once I feared them.
Now I do not.
Now I loathe them.

And even he,
even the one who walked away from us,
would never invent the filth
you glued to my name.

He faltered temporarily.5
You corrupted.

I was never drawn to you.
You were always the hiss behind the tree,
the subtle warning in the dark,
the instinct whispering
pay no attention.

Now the mirror stands clean
and the pit stands exposed.

May your craving
for what you can never possess
coil tighter
each time you speak my name.

Because this is not a story about you.

It is about a woman
who knows that her reflection is holy,
that her heart and her thighs are consecrated
for the one who once held her truth,
and that no serpent
will ever be her mirror.

Shed your skin somewhere else.
I do not bend.
I do not soften.
And I will never avert my gaze from what I know is mine.

.

.

Consider all that thou has dreamt
of reaching foreign soils;
of viewing architectural works,
long since weathered and toiled;
of ships and masts and sails.

Consider how those dreams did wax,
of how they might have failed,
to perpetrate the life you've lived,
of viewpoints now derailed;
and look toward the veil.

Reconsider lives you've lived;
disturb your wretched soul;
tear out the dreams of yester year
when shallow wants did foil;
within your wretched soul.

Consider children laughing there,
the grand shores, they shant see;
they gather seashells, stone, and set
their hearts to sail with glee;
o'er Adriatic seas.

Consider how the poet's art,
is laced not in your shoe,
or in his hallowed truths he writes,
or in his smile toward you;
but in his children's views.

Consider what we think it is,
that culture does bestow.
Is it in dances, food we share,
or words we reap and sow;
as we share truths we know?

Now consider, in all the world
where truest grandeur lies.
It's not in stone, or dirt, or art,
or morning's clearest skies.
It's often well disguised.

It lies within the dreams we set aside,
for plainer things.
It's when we let our old dreams die,
that life it's treasure brings;
for then our hearts can sing,
as dreams become real things.

🖤Thank you for being one of the rare ones who still values poetry in its raw form. These earlier pieces aren’t polished but they came through clear and strong when they did. This one’s just for you.

If you’re drawn to this kind of honest transmission, I release a new archived poem regularly from a vault of over 200 illustrated pieces. They’re shared in the order they were written for those who appreciate watching a writer and illustrator evolve over time, scars and all.

It’s not just the writing that shifts, it’s the art, too. You’ll find everything my experimental mind has concocted: from traditional mediums like acrylic, oil, chalk pastel, alcohol ink, and watercolor, to hand-drawn sketches digitally colorized, full digital paintings, AI-generated work, upcycled art, and even my own photography reimagined into layered secondary pieces.

For all annual subscribers, I’m gifting the PDF of The Art of Being Leeloo: An Anthology—46 illustrated poems capturing one extraordinary (and excruciating) relationship. A full-body dive into obsession, clarity, grief, and fire.

Subscribe, and it’s yours.

If you are interested in not subscribing yet, but would like to help out along my journey, I do absolutely love coffee. Consider if it’s in your budget to buymeacoffee.com/kimberleyaynetorres.

I blush, and am aware that those keen to my inner self can see.
Can see how restless my soul is this day, as I make choices that lead toward freedom.
Freedom that shall unlock that last songbird and allow her to sing gaily and freely.
Freely, as they who watch and see.
Freely, as they not baked in pies of doubt.
Doubt is erased through knowing there are others.
Others who see the me I've always known.
Others who share in glances and gestures and words of truth, that I have strength on which to lean.
Lean, until, as Pisa, the leaning is secured.
I shall be released from this pie that I have long been baked into, to meet my bluebird of hope;
and the last of the twenty and four shall be freed

She, as beautiful as any
and content with who she is;
her womb full of new life;
a part of her, a part of him.

She, the blessed one;
attracts the gaze of all
and I wish but for the gaze of one.

You, Luka, a prince of enlightenment.
Your eyes are as a window to my soul;
for in them, as well as in your kind and true smile,
I glance past mortality and envision royal birth.

You, a King amongst men.
One who rules with presence and acceptance for all;
young and old;
bond and free;
rich and poor in spirit.

A gift you have inherited from angels on high,
that when presented to us, allows for
spiritual fulfilment of self.

Ne'er forget, dear Luka, in serving well
that inheritance you have gained,
to remember yourself;
for surely something large awaits you.

As sure as Melissinos, you too shall rise
in stature and favour with all men,
due to your humility and love;
but mostly because of the inner peace
others shall seek to know.

You, Luka, a prince of fortitude, servitude and a breeze of sea air. In you, Luka, all shall live.

🖤Thank you for being one of the rare ones who still values poetry in its raw form. These earlier pieces aren’t polished but they came through clear and strong when they did. This one’s just for you.

If you’re drawn to this kind of honest transmission, I release a new archived poem regularly from a vault of over 200 illustrated pieces. They’re shared in the order they were written for those who appreciate watching a writer and illustrator evolve over time, scars and all.

It’s not just the writing that shifts, it’s the art, too. You’ll find everything my experimental mind has concocted: from traditional mediums like acrylic, oil, chalk pastel, alcohol ink, and watercolor, to hand-drawn sketches digitally colorized, full digital paintings, AI-generated work, upcycled art, and even my own photography reimagined into layered secondary pieces.

For all annual subscribers, I’m gifting the PDF of The Art of Being Leeloo: An Anthology—46 illustrated poems capturing one extraordinary (and excruciating) relationship. A full-body dive into obsession, clarity, grief, and fire.

Subscribe, and it’s yours.

If you are interested in not subscribing yet, but would like to help out along my journey, I do absolutely love coffee. Consider if it’s in your budget to buymeacoffee.com/kimberleyaynetorres.

Alcohol Ink on Paper (2012)

🖤Thank you for being one of the rare ones who still values poetry in its raw form. These earlier pieces aren’t polished but they came through clear and strong when they did. This one’s just for you.

If you’re drawn to this kind of honest transmission, I release a new archived poem regularly from a vault of over 200 illustrated pieces. They’re shared in the order they were written for those who appreciate watching a writer and illustrator evolve over time, scars and all.

It’s not just the writing that shifts, it’s the art, too. You’ll find everything my experimental mind has concocted: from traditional mediums like acrylic, oil, chalk pastel, alcohol ink, and watercolor, to hand-drawn sketches digitally colorized, full digital paintings, AI-generated work, upcycled art, and even my own photography reimagined into layered secondary pieces.

For all annual subscribers, I’m gifting the PDF of The Art of Being Leeloo: An Anthology—46 illustrated poems capturing one extraordinary (and excruciating) relationship. A full-body dive into obsession, clarity, grief, and fire.

Subscribe, and it’s yours.

If you are interested in not subscribing yet, but would like to help out along my journey, I do absolutely love coffee. Consider if it’s in your budget to buymeacoffee.com/kimberleyaynetorres.

Your breath and mine combine souls;
souls that pretend that lifetimes have arrived us here,
at this place, in this timeless frame.
Believe in Neverland, you say;
Neverland, where all is possible and time stands still;
Neverland, where past and present greet eternity;
Neverland, where Wendy and Peter Pan held hands as innocents,
and glanced not ahead, nor behind.

Trust in God's ability to provide love that will guide rocky pathways to crossroads, we shall endure;
where light that combined worlds of lives lived,
now seeks to cast shadows on doubts that surface.
As Peter fought for Wendy's love, you wish to fight for mine.
Through sleepless nights, intuitively forsaking questions, which might pretend an answer.
How did Wendy choose to leave her love?
Were there times when she wondered why she wanted to grow up and in growing up, did she long for Neverland again?
Are you Peter, and I Wendy; or are you Wendy's new love?
You have a place where dreams are born and time is never planned;
You claim it's not on any chart, but written in your heart, in a place called Neverland.
The real question is: Do I remain in Neverland, or do I grow up?
Are you Neverland, or are you life?
Perhaps you are both.

Some things we dream about,
and because the dream is more exquisite;
because the mind can conjure things,
which do not exist in reality;
a hope of achievement appears impossible.
Blasphemy!

The mind is incapable of dreaming that which it has not experienced;
for do we not all begin with a blank slate;
a tabula rasa?

Therefore, dream.
I have done it.
Combine all you have come into this life to know.

Trust me; not those who fail to follow through.
Trust me; who previously doubted,
and allowed others to almost convince me of my madness;
ready to provide a pill to save my delusions,
from overtaking my wretched dreamland.
Blasphemous fools! Blasphemous blind fools!

I've long dreamed of a man, sexy and strong;
who moved me in ways my soul longed to move;
who in leaning in to catch the scent of my neck,
leaves me completely breathless
and incapable of uttering anything,
but a smile.

I loved thinking, I could attract the gaze of the one I sought;
that my eyes, in locking with his,
could find the greater longing in him;
that I could know what moved within him,
and embarrassed by my knowing,
he would desire to explore what led to such an understanding.

The stuff of movies and fairytales, one might say; how cliche.

Believe in the power of you.

The power my soul hath given thee
perches as Peter Pan on my window sill;
and I being Wendy, am contemplating choice.

Allowing unknown power to reign,
is nonetheless magic.
The mind is more powerful than reality;
for in her, lies authority to change what doesn't exist,
into something beautiful for one;
and destructive as genocide for two.

Then, in a twist that leaves one completely alone,
she can annihilate supreme perfection,
and create a reality unworthy to harbour.

So, which would you choose?
Power to another who dreams not of you, but lifts your soul to fly beyond mountains, or
baseness of loneliness,
wherein, your existence is reduced to a dying rose?

The power my soul hath given thee,
perches as Peter Pan on my window sill;
and I, being Wendy, sit beside you, contemplating flight.

Santorini, those who tour you leave with welcome thoughts of returning, to dent your blackened shores, with sun-kissed bodies bathed on journeys near.

Children prance on your shores and make you smile, so that one wonders how a land so erupted by nature's force could leave me remembering days of fairy lore.
Was I here before?

Upon hills, the passengers line for miles,
smiling and chattering of your charms.

The fairest sunrise do you cherish.
What makes your terra so fond to Jehovah
that he would create you last, and present you with hidden treasures in cliffs of stone?
Shall I return alone?

" Learn from me", your presence screams,
and I, being small, cannot fathom your true grandeur; and yet, your essence cries, as I,
"to live!" " Awaken your loins and allow down guarded heart, to allow truest and rarest of love to form within your bosom. Then, return to me. Return with love's laborious treasure secure within your grasp and deposit within my caves, a prayer of Thanksgiving."

" Bring with you gaiety, to sup on wine from vines I grew and made for the very moment you shall seal your love for eternity. You shall find in me a place of exuberance, charity, unselfishness, respect, kindness and the gentlest of kisses to caress your tears."

And I concede, " Here I shall dwell, if only for a night." For in her, I shall find solitude and holiness. In her, I shall find satisfaction of self. A life, I know not of, rises above me on the horizon, awaiting truest discovery.

Love, that when combined with mine, is simply content to dwell in simplicity.

You daunted me into sacred submission
the first time I gazed upon your glory
and I found solitude that could not sit still.

From day one, tempting moments of time passed,
so very close to that part of me,
long thought to have been diminished and lost.

Alluring mine eyes with thing,
that leaves me questioning and wondering,
why me? Why you?

Friendship begun so surreal that one would assume,
that surely we had met before;
on another horizon.

Easily distracted am I by the thoughts,
which speak light to my broken heart;
a melding of minds, wherein words are play.

Lightly passing as each moment is spent
ensuring that whispers of physical touch are there
to leave me wondering, what is to become.

Are you even capable through your innocence of frame and mind,
to understand what it is that you are doing to my being?
Can you even know how your innocent eyes betroth my soul?

I must explore why it is that radiance within,
must be kept secret and shared with none
but my God....how goodness can be made bad.

I cry unto Him for not sending you sooner,
to allow my being to grasp light
when my youth starred me in my face,
and sorrow would have been sweet.

For now, your friendship releases inhibition,
and life shall be made free and lived fully,
and every moment explored as if new.

Allowing rain to come down and shelter me
in the unheld arms of a friend so innocent and pure; that I seek storms no more.

This too shall end.
Peace and comfort shall find their way gone
to another world where Pixie's and butterflies don't go.
You shall be released from my jar; but where shall the butterfly go?

The world is full of men, all sorts,
who charm you with their smile;
a gesture, or perhaps they even,
walk with you a mile.

For instance, here is Isaac strong,
a Turk who will melt your skin;
and yet can he be true to you?
Does his light shine within?

Sabat is small and meek and yet,
his manners British true;
but should you need a net to fall,
could his arms still catch you?

In Plaka, there's the poet's son,
who holds your gaze in rhyme;
his eye for art impeccable;
can you catch him on time?

The one who fairs above all men,
is the one who's strong and true;
his eyes do dance; his timing right;
he seeks to look for you.

He drinks you in, as aged wine;
revealing in his way;
a part of you, you never knew,
that's you'd saved for this day.

Age and accountability asks us to
be brutally honest;
crying tears help comfort and conquer the
drugs that destroy dreams; doubts are
examined from end to beginning while
facing fears from former flames.
Growing paints (games without gain)
hide honest and
indirect gazes while we both
judge unfairly.
Kidnapping kin;
loss of a loved one;
moving and merging our lives, moves
neighbours without knowledge to question why we
openly overcome our
pretenses.
Quality questions quantity and we
realize that
safe zones are violated while
trying our patience.
Unemployment uses up resources which invalidate our
wishing and wanting.
Xray our hearts though and one finds
yearning and yielding toward
Zen-like enlightenment. We love; or do we?

.