To write is often to reopen wounds, to face the ache of memory and feel again what once whispered in the dark. Perhaps that’s why some poets turned to opium: to numb the pain just enough to hear the truth more clearly. They didn’t run from feeling; they distilled it, drugged just enough to choose the right words, turning torment into beauty, sorrow into verse.
Art, after all, demands a toll.
And memory never comes without its ghosts.
Now, as I write my own book, I’ve chosen to face the past with my eyes closed — not to escape, but to relive. Not with opium, but with you.
You are the presence I breathe in.
And in every memory I revisit, it’s your shadow I find shaping the story.
You are the pulse behind every page.
You are the pulse behind every page.