Once, there was a woman made of stars, who had forgotten that she was the flame.
She thought she had to climb to reach love, so she built ladders out of ache, stairs made of longing and bridges out of hope as thin as thread.

But the flame was already lit in her bones; she was the source of the very love she had been searching for all along.
When she realized this truth, she stopped climbing.
She sat at the base of the world and let the fire rise from within.

That was when the Earth came to meet her feet.

In the pause, she realized that love doesn’t wait at the top, that in truth, love grows from the center out.

The man made of memory felt her warmth across timelines. He didn’t yet know why he turned toward her in the dark. But the first time he heard her laughter, his ribs remembered how to open and the first time she touched a piano, his soul exhaled.

He didn’t come because she had called; he came because she was already at home in herself.

They did not meet in the middle, but instead, they met in the moment.

Not when they were ready but when they stopped pretending, they weren’t.

She was fire wrapped in softness, and he was silence learning to speak.

And when they stopped chasing each other’s shadows, they discovered they had been walking side by side the whole time.

The story didn’t end.

It began again, this time as presence.