To The Loves of My Life

My friends are the loves of my life.

They have seen the ugliest corners of me

and never turned away.

They have stitched my wounds,

wiped the salt of grief from my cheeks,

and clasped my hand through the blackest nights.

They let me crash against them when the waves refused to relent.

When I had no strength to stand, they were my legs.

When the world roared too loud, they became my quiet.

Something in me mended with each laugh we shared—

each smile across coffee cups and glasses of wine,

each embrace that drew lost fragments of my soul back into place.

I found myself again each time they reminded me: you are loved.

How miraculous, in a world so cold, to stumble into warmth like this—

to find resting places soft as sunlight

and an oasis for the weary heart

when life becomes jagged and cruel.

Even if my heart were to shatter into a thousand pieces,

I know they would scour the earth for every shard,

and knit them together again with hands made gentle,

with words spun of kindness.

To the friends who have saved me,

who dragged me back from shadows too deep to name—

you are my guiding light,

my refuge,

the living definition of love.

Without you, the world dulls to gray.

Without you, I am unrecognizable,

a half-formed thing.

You are never absent from me—

not for a second, not in any breath I take.

I carry you with me.

I cherish you fiercely.

And I love you—

with every thread,

every ache,

every gleam of my soul.