He called me his lioness. He liked the way my hair curled down my back, the way the sun would bathe me in soft rivers of light. I met him as he was whispering French poetry to himself. It made me happy that we only spoke a few words of each other’s native languages. It meant that we could let our bodies speak to each other, let the silences and the long looks speak for themselves. I was only there for a week longer. He held my hands to his face and smiled. I thought it was love. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him, to see life as he saw it. I had a lot of dreams tucked away between my fingers, and he held them safe like he knew where they breathed. I let myself be taken in. I woke up next to him and sipped coffee while he smoked. I watched the sun catch the windows of sleepy Parisian streets, and I knew that I’d be with him for years to come. Isn’t it funny sometimes? The things you love about a person become the things that pull you apart. The talking too fast, the burned fingertips, those eyes you can’t understand anymore. People slip away from you when you’re being so careful. They slip away and shatter like liquid nitrogen roses. I gave too much away. I never kept anything safe. That is what the young do. They love too deeply. It’s as though I had been holding my breath for the longest time, and then suddenly the pressure had intensified and my lungs were perforating. I know what it feels like to have a piece of my heart die away very young, and so all I’ll tell you is this. Guard your heart. Keep it safe because it is the place you go when you are alone. It is the one safe place. The place that knows no language and it is that place that saves you. Your body is flesh and bone, it cuts and bleeds. But there is a part of you, the part that makes your blood pulse and the part that tells you to say sorry. That part you must protect…💔❣️💞