Sir, have I invited you in?
No lantern lit, no welcome whispered—yet there you were, gliding effortlessly into my bloodstream, an interloper cloaked in longing. My breath betrayed me, drunk on the perfume of your intentions, tasting the edges of danger with every inhalation.

It wasn’t permission. It was surrender.

I never cracked open my chest. It broke on its own.
No scalpel, no consent—just the brutal revelation of every ache I’d buried. My bones whispered secrets you hadn’t earned, yet you listened with that wicked smile, the one that grazed my threshold like flame to parchment.

Did I invite you in, or did I consume you—swallowed you whole, tucked you into the marrow of my ache—just as your gaze stung my ribs with its knowing?

Perhaps you were never the intruder.
Perhaps I was always the vessel waiting to be breached.

©️ Beatriz Esmer