Where the Light Lingers…

courtney | 32 | 🤍 where the deepest feelings live and longing turns into language.

[sunkissedthoughts]

Welcome to Where the Light Lingers

by Court | @sunkissedthoughts

This space wasn’t born from noise.

It was born from the quiet moments—the in-betweens.

The pause between exhale and inhale.

The ache before the answer.

The softness that follows strength.

Here, I write for the ones who carry invisible weights,

who hold space for others but forget to keep some for themselves.

I write for those who feel deeply,

who find beauty in the small things,

who stumble under pebbles no one else sees

and still rise.

This is where my thoughts come to rest.

Where I lay down what’s been quietly building inside.

Where reflection meets release.

And where I hope you, too, feel a little less alone.

If you’ve found yourself here, maybe it’s not by accident.

Maybe something in these words mirrors a piece of you.

If so—stay a while.

You’re safe here.

This is Where the Light Lingers.

Even on the heavy days.

[sunkissedthoughts]

soulmate

a word I used to romanticize

like something distant,

like something reserved for other people

something soft and unreachable

something I could imagine

but never quite hold

until you

and it isn’t butterflies

it isn’t anxiety dressed up as excitement

it isn’t the rush of something new

or the ache of something uncertain

it isn’t a puzzle I’m trying to solve

you are not a question

you are an answer

you are calm

you are consistent

you are new, but never unfamiliar

like something my soul remembers

before my mind can understand it

there is a steadiness in the way you want me

a quiet strength

never overwhelming, never wavering

just… there

in the way you anticipate me

my thoughts, my needs, my silences

in the way you meet my overthinking

not with frustration,

but with clarity

with words that soften the noise

I grew up wondering

if love meant being saved

and at the same time

never trusting that it could

but I prayed anyway

for a man of faith

a man of pride

a man of desire and devotion

someone who would see my heart

and hold it gently

like something sacred

someone accountable

curious

steady enough to lead,

soft enough to listen

I prayed for someone like you

but no prayer could have prepared me

for you

because even distance

feels like it’s disappearing

the more certain I become

the more I know

you are not a dream

you are my answer

my certainty

my soulmate

[sunkissedthoughts]

I love you.

But those words

feel too small

for the gratitude

I carry for you.

I admire you, my love.

Every piece of you

as it reveals itself—

your character unfolding

like truth I didn’t know

I was waiting for.

You are wonderful

in ways I’m still learning

how to name.

In your flaws,

I will be there.

In your celebrations,

I will be there.

When breathing feels heavy,

when the next step feels impossible,

when time refuses to slow—

I will be there.

I pray we are kept

for each other.

My heart feels safe with you.

I promise to hold yours

with reverence,

with tenderness,

with a love that asks for nothing

but to stay.

I speak in poems

because it’s the only way

I know how to reach

what this feels like.

And still—

it will never be enough.

[sunkissedthoughts]

it’s always been you.

you make me happy

you make me laugh—

the kind of laugh that slips out

before I can stop it

you make me feel free,

open,

unafraid of being seen

you give me a peace

I didn’t know existed—

the quiet kind,

the kind that stays

I feel safe with you

even from afar,

even without your hands here,

even in the waiting

you keep me curious

you invite me into growth

into learning,

into becoming more

I see how much you care

in the words you choose,

in the way you hold your thoughts,

in how gently you offer your truth

I know this is the beginning of us

but sometimes

it feels like it has always been you

my love for you

is not measured by worth,

by tasks,

by a checklist of proof

my love

has always been yours

and now—

I finally get to show you ♥️

[vexheart]

[mv11]

[sunkissedthoughts]

distance, or devotion

why does it hurt so much

being away from you—

why does longing spill more tears

than joy ever dares to?

my heart aches

in a way that feels physical,

as if it knows the miles by name,

as if it’s counting the time

with bruised hands—

the time it will take to reach you,

the time until someday,

the time until together for good.

I know I feel deeply.

I have known pain that lived

where light never stayed.

but this—

this is different.

this is quiet and relentless.

this is a wound that doesn’t bleed,

only asks questions.

is this love?

do I truly love this man?

is this what it means

to finally let my soul rest?

because my soul is not uneasy.

it is calm.

it is certain.

it is still.

it is my body that aches—

this fragile, human form

desperate to be near you,

to exist in the same air,

to close the distance

with touch instead of hope.

I don’t know

if this is all in my head

or something painfully true.

all I know is this:

I will try to reach you.

even if it takes a lifetime.

[fromhersoul]

Real intimacy is when someone understands the walls you built for protection and approaches them with patience instead of pressure.

[sunkissedthoughts]

Reverence.

I love without a bottom.

Without edges.

When I trust, I step in fully—

no map, no armor,

just my whole heart in my hands.

But something in me listens now.

Not loudly—

carefully.

A lie will stop me, yes.

But so will the quiet things:

words forgotten,

details overlooked,

the moments where presence slips.

I notice.

I always have.

So I walk slower these days.

Still open.

Still willing.

Just attentive enough

not to miss what matters

while I’m loving.

Because when I love,

I love deeply.

Purely.

Without condition.

My love is not careless—

it transforms,

it steadies,

it brings peace.

I know the weight of that.

I don’t dangle it.

I don’t tease with it.

I hold it with reverence.

To love the way I do

is something to be handled gently—

even if the hands holding it

are still learning how.

[sunkissedthoughts]

Tender

You were born with a softer edge,

a way of noticing what others miss—

the pause in someone’s voice,

the hunger behind their laughter,

the ache that doesn’t ask to be seen.

This is not weakness.

This is a rare instrument

tuned to truth.

Yes, it bruises you sometimes—

when your love spills into hands

that don’t know how to hold it,

when your generosity becomes a mirror

for someone else’s emptiness.

But don’t confuse pain with proof

that you are too much.

You are simply early.

One day your care will land

where it is met with equal reverence,

where your giving is not questioned

but cherished,

where love moves in both directions

without keeping score.

Until then, stay open.

Stay luminous.

Let the careless pass through

without convincing you

to dim your light.

The world does not need less tenderness.

It needs people brave enough

to protect it.

And you—

you are learning how.

[sunkissedthoughts]

every truth

it was never hunger

it was the quiet pull beneath it

the place where longing learns how to breathe

you kiss like you’re emptying something old

like grief has fingerprints

and you’re leaving them on my skin

on purpose

there’s a kind of silence

that only happens between two people

who are tired of pretending

and we live there

your love isn’t clean

it crackles, it burns uneven

it asks me to stay anyway

and I do

touch me like I’m the last thing you remember

like my name is the only map you kept

like every inch of me is proof

that something can still grow

hold me as if this moment matters

as if the dark is watching

and you’re brave enough to choose me in it

I don’t want your body

I want the way time loosens its grip

when you’re close

the way your love tries—clumsy, honest—

to give back what was taken

and if this is the only version of you I get

unfinished, trembling, real—

I’ll take it

every breath

every bruise

every truth

[sunkissedthoughts]

home.

I am wrapped in a quiet joy,

the kind that feels ordained.

As if the universe leaned in

and finally said, yes.

I am seen—

not with eyes alone,

but with something older,

something that recognizes me

beyond this lifetime.

He is galaxies away,

yet my heart does not know distance.

It beats like a spell already cast,

like his hands are written

into my pulse.

He brings me peace—

not the fragile kind,

but the deep, holy stillness

that feels like coming home

to a place I’ve never been.

When he writes,

the words awaken something dormant.

They don’t land—

they remember me.

I feel them echo

through bone and soul.

Perhaps this is kismet,

or the slow unfolding of it—

two spirits circling

what was always meant

to find itself.

I have never known this love,

yet I have always carried its shape.

He is my love.

The one the stars have been

quietly pointing toward.

And I am grateful—

for the timing,

for the distance,

for the knowing

that transcends.

[sunkissedthoughts]

faultline

tonight the sky feels heavier,

holding all the words

we’re too afraid to name.

and I’m here—

heart open,

hands shaking—

loving you

through a space so wide

it’s starting to swallow us.

maybe it isn’t you,

or me,

or anything we did—

maybe it’s just the distance,

carving faultlines

into something

that needed closeness

to survive.

still, I keep listening

for the sound of us

holding on,

even as the miles

pull harder.

[sunkissedthoughts]

drift

maybe this is where

you remember yourself—

in the quiet tilt

between who you were

and who you’re rising into.

and maybe the tide

has been calling you

longer than you realized,

whispering that even uncertainty

can be a kind of doorway—

the kind you walk through

with trembling hands

and widening lungs.

because something in you

has been stretching for space,

growing restless in the rooms

that asked you to stay small.

now, the walls fall away—

now, you catch the shimmer

of your own momentum.

so go—

let the deep parts of you

take their shape.

let the river you’ve been resisting

show you how to move

without asking for permission.

and when the rising feels too much,

remember:

you were made for this—

for expansion,

for unfolding,

for becoming the version of you

that no past version

could have imagined.

flow.

grow.

begin again.

[mournfulroses]

Nikolay Punin, from a diary entry featured in The Diaries of Nikolay Punin: 1904 - 1953

[cythereanic]

Palais Garnier (1875) - Paris

[thoughtkick]

“The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too.”

— Ernest Hemingway

[sunkissedthoughts]

Oof 🤍