Somewhere between the edges of two worlds

The Call to Depart

The morning met me with a quiet urgency, a pressure not loud but deeply present, the kind that breathes before a great shift. I did not wake to the alarm of a clock, nor to the noise of the world. I awoke to something internal, an echo ancient and insistent. It wasn’t fear or restlessness. It was anticipation. A solemn goodbye was weaving itself through my chest as I prepared to leave the land that had held me for so long. My body was headed west across the ocean, not to reunite, but to release. I was going home, not to stay, but to let go.

While the ticket said “Mexico,” the journey was not about return, it was about release. I was heading back to the soil of old memories, to the jungle that had witnessed versions of me I’m ready to shed. This was a pilgrimage inward, a necessary reckoning with what I had once clung to, so that I could rise from it. My direction wasn’t toward her yet. Not yet. It was toward a clearing, a sacred pause before stepping into the life we are building together.

And so, I leave not to escape, but to arrive—arrive at the end of something long held and now ready to be set down. There is grief, yes, but it is a cleansing kind. The ache of parting is not for what I am leaving, but for what I know waits for me when I return to London, to her. My flight is not toward love, but in preparation for it. What awaits me there is the space to be fully hers, unburdened and whole.

“There is a hush before every storm, and in that hush, truth speaks.”

The Message in the Dark

In the still hours of morning, long before the sky began to stretch and yawn, her messages came. They arrived quietly but with weight, like sacred texts delivered through silk. Each word she sent carried not just meaning, but gravity. It was more than communication, it was invocation. Her first note asked a simple question, but it struck me with holy depth. Had I prepared her tribute? Was I ready for the collar?

The collar she speaks of is not just ornament or symbol. It is a bond, a circle of belonging, crafted not only of metal, but of commitment, spirit, and surrender. In that question, she wasn’t just asking about logistics, she was preparing to claim me fully. Her readiness to seal our dynamic in ritual, to mark me with her name and presence, cracked something open inside me. It felt like being seen and chosen all at once.

That vision, kneeling before her, heart bare, as she fastens that collar around my neck, is not a fantasy, it is a vow made visible. That image gives the act of departure a softness I did not expect. It tells me I’m not leaving behind something precious, but moving toward something sacred. Her readiness to claim me is a lantern in the darkness, and I am already on my knees.

“Some words arrive not as sound, but as touch.”

Vows in Silence

She told me the contract we had spoken of is complete, yet she has chosen to hold it for now. At first, I expected it to arrive, to feel the tangible reality of our agreement in my hands. But she withheld it, not from hesitation, but from intention. Like a seasoned composer, she knows the silence before a crescendo is as meaningful as the sound that follows. She waits for the right moment, and I trust her to know when that will be.

Her decisions have always carried layers, each choice echoing far beyond its surface. Her pause speaks not of doubt, but of preparation. Her conditions added to the contract are her way of deepening the vow. I do not feel left behind in the waiting. I feel prepared for, held in the unfolding of something slow and deliberate. There is power in restraint, and she wears it well.

I do not need to chase timing. I have surrendered to her rhythm, and I have come to trust it more than my own. In a world so quick to rush, her pace is a balm. She moves like ritual, not routine. I follow because I want to, because something in her cadence mirrors something sacred in me. This is not a race. It is a rite.

“Even the pause between notes is part of the music.”

A Farewell, A Flood

Before I left, I sent her a farewell message, simple and soft, hoping she would carry my words with her as the day stretched on. When she replied, her words unraveled me. She said I mean more to her than I could imagine. That she had been quietly aligning her life to offer me what I deserve: attention, care, devotion. Her message was not just affection. It was foundation. A confirmation that I was not reaching alone, she had been building, too.

Her love lands not like thunder but like rain in a dry place, quiet and life-giving. There is no demand in her affection, only precision. She spins her care like a spider builds a web: with intent, with detail, and with total control. I am caught, yes, but willingly, gratefully. There is nothing passive about being held by her. It is a surrender that brings me more fully into myself.

When love arrives like this, it doesn’t fill a void, it transforms it. Her words replaced my old cloak of loneliness with something woven of attention and purpose. I am not just wanted, I am claimed. In that claiming, I find relief. The ache of leaving my physical home is soothed by the awareness that my soul has already found one.

“Some words crack us open because they are exactly what we’ve been waiting to hear.”

The Breath Between Worlds

I had missed her first messages by a few hours. At first, I wondered why she hadn’t mentioned what had happened to me over the weekend. But as the day unfolded, her words found me. While I waited at the airport, surrounded by the sterile churn of travel and announcements, her message came, and it pierced the moment with its truth.

She had fallen asleep thinking of how to respond, she said. My story, of losing my heartbeat, of needing CPR, had shaken her. She told me how hard it had been to imagine it, to feel so close to losing me. Her care came through not just in her concern, but in her questioning. Was I afraid? Was I hurting? Her compassion gave me the space to speak, not from trauma, but from transformation.

I told her the truth, it wasn’t fear that visited me, it was something beyond. I spoke of transcendence, of floating beyond the skin, of becoming something pure and formless. Of communication through emotion, not words. She listened, absorbed, and honored it. She said few people glimpse such things and fewer still return to speak of them. But I did. And I did so knowing she was the one I could entrust with that kind of knowing.

“Death is not always an ending. Sometimes, it’s a door.”

In the Shadow of Departure

We spoke until it was time for me to board. Her voice, digital as it was, held me, cradled me through the departure gate. She told me she wished she had been there, that no one should face something like that alone. Her words warmed me, even as they reminded me of the old cloak of solitude I’ve worn for years. But now, it no longer fits.

I carried her with me through every hour of that ten, hour flight. Through the hum of films, the dimming of lights, the unspooling of time, she was there. Her words were not fixed in memory, they were alive, playing over and over like a favorite song. I wondered how we would manage this distance, the time zones and missed messages. But love, I’m learning, doesn’t wear a wristwatch. It moves differently. It breathes in stillness and speaks in ritual.

She told me, “I will always be there to catch you when you fall.” Gods, how that landed. Not just as a promise, but as a truth already lived. I have fallen. And now, I am caught.

“Even in absence, love can lay beside you.”

The Jungle and the Tether

When I returned to the jungle, it felt like slipping into an old dream. The trees whispered in languages only the heart can understand, and the air was thick with welcome. This jungle is my home, always has been. But this time, even among the familiar, something was different. I was tethered, invisibly, indelibly, to someone far away.

Evenings return me to her. My rituals remain unchanged, candles lit, water offered, breath stilled. Yet now, each act becomes a whisper of her name, a soft chant of devotion. The jungle does not compete with her presence. It joins it. Her essence lives in the leaves, in the hush between birdcalls, in the rhythm of my breath as I kneel.

She is with me, whether I am at her feet or under the stars alone. This distance does not dilute us. It deepens us. For when the soul is already claimed, physical presence becomes just one way to say I am yours. There are countless others. And I speak them all.

“When the soul is claimed, miles mean nothing.”