the dialect my heart understands

love wears many dialects—soft-spoken words that settle into the quiet chambers of the heart, acts of service offered like whispered prayers, time gifted as though it were a rare, endangered thing, small tokens slipped into waiting hands as if to say i see you. but mine is not sewn from distance. mine is the language of nearness—of skin warmed by skin, of heat and the unspoken current that hums between two bodies who have already promised each other the safety of staying. mine is spoken in the way a palm finds mine in the dark as though it were guided there by instinct, in the brush of a shoulder that sends a slow-bloom shiver up my spine, in the hug that lingers long enough to teach my lungs the rhythm of your breathing.

physical touch is how i hear i love you the loudest—in a steady hand resting at the small of my back, in fingers threading through my hair until the edges of the world blur, in a kiss that says nothing and yet manages to speak every language of devotion at once. it is not a language of ownership, but of unwavering presence—of saying i am here without a syllable. it is the sensation of leaning into an embrace and finding there is no cliff, no drop, only arms built to hold the entirety of me.

touch is the punctuation of love—the exclamation point in a kiss that steals the air from my lungs, the comma in the soft graze of fingertips that asks me not to move just yet, the period in the quiet press of foreheads before surrendering to sleep. when the world presses its weight into my chest and i am carrying all the seasons at once, it is the meeting of skin to skin that calls me home. it is warmth spilling into the cold and stitching me back to myself—reminding me of the simplest, oldest truth: love is not always spoken aloud.

sometimes it is the thumb that draws lazy circles against my palm, the way your knees brush mine under the table just to remind me you are there, the wordless moment when your arm wraps around me before the dreamlight of sleep pulls us under. it is the silent vow in the way you pull me closer in a crowded room, as if the noise cannot touch us, as if the only thing that exists is the space we make between our bodies. it is the cool of your hand against my overheated skin, the quiet stillness of holding each other when the storm outside howls louder than our thoughts, the unspoken promise tucked inside the brush of your lips against the crown of my head. it is the language that tells me we do not have to be unshaken to be unbreakable.

and when the world grows unbearably loud, when my chest feels like it’s carrying the heavy, slow-turning orbit of every season at once, it is your touch that becomes my compass—finding me in the dark, pulling me back toward the steady ground of your presence. it is the grounding hum of skin against skin, the way your warmth seeps into my cold edges until i am no longer afraid of the winter in me. love is not always spoken aloud. sometimes it is written in the language of touch—a language my soul has always known, a language i will spend my whole life fluent in, crafting its sentences across your skin, writing and rewriting its verses in the quiet hours, until there is no doubt, only the steady truth that i am here, and i am yours.

with ink + bloom, 🌻