SHE WHO ASCENDS - FIRST PART

Cream, green, and a pair of half-crooked slippers.

Apparently, that was all a man needed to have his inner identity remodeled.

I always thought mine would happen in a grander way. Maybe at a Gatsby-style masked party, inside some Victorian mansion with golden lights, marble floors, and some nice, soft music.

I imagined a beautiful damsel in a red dress. Golden stilettos lifting her just enough to meet me eye to eye. Red lips, dangerous and deliberate. A scent of fresh olives and strawberries trailing behind and in front of her. One look, and I would have been undone completely.

But no.

All it took was crooked slippers.

—-

Dayum, Daniel.

You should have done better. You should have stood taller, spoken smoother, carried yourself like a man who knew what he was doing. But then again, if you were not a man, maybe you would not understand. No man born of a woman could lay eyes on She who stood there and not feel his heart melt down to the soles of his feet.

I could speak for hours about her height — daunting, almost unfair. Good luck to any man who tries to approach her without balls of steel. I could speak about the grace in her walk, the calmness in her voice, the way her presence pulls you into something close to a lucid dream.

She does not just appear.

She settles the air.

She gives comfort without trying. She makes silence feel safe. She carries herself like someone who has no idea how much damage beauty can do when it’s dipped in calmness.

And still, no amount of writing will give even a fraction of what it feels like to be near her. I could dress the feeling in metaphors, dip it in imagery, and it still would not be enough.

Somewhere along the line, we reached an inflection point. An imperfect misalignment between what we considered urgent, what we considered important, and what we were willing to live for.

I do not know how She feels.

But I know how I feel.

I still hope the future I imagined finds its way into existence. I still hope, somehow, the picture in my head does not remain only a picture. But if it does — if life chooses another road, if distance wins, if timing proves stronger than longing — then I will not reduce her to bitterness.

I would say I hope for the best for her, but even that feels too conditional.

There is no “if” with She.

She — Lives up to her name.