mstabithahart

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“She didn’t need to be saved. She needed to be found and appreciated for exactly who she was.”

— j. iron word

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Jupiter and Io, 1785 by John Hoppner (English, 1758--1810)

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Sunlight and Shadow, 1862 by Albert Bierstadt (German-born American, 1830–1902)

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“One day someone is going to hug you so tight, that all of your broken pieces will stick back together.”

— Unknown

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“Two things to remember in life: Take care of your thoughts when you are alone, and take care of your words when you are with people.”

— Zig Ziglar

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Letters I Never Sent but Still Meant

I have a box filled with unsent letters. Some are sealed. Others are torn at the edges, worn with rereading. All of them unfinished. Or maybe too finished. Too honest to deliver.

I used to write them late at night — always in ink, never typed. Some to past lovers. Some to friends who left without warning. A few to people who will never know what they meant to me. And more than a few to the version of myself I haven’t quite become.

They begin like confessions and end like poems. They are not for closure. They’re for clarity.

Sometimes I think we write to people because we’re still looking for the version of ourselves we were in their presence. The brave version. The soft version. The girl who asked better questions or laughed at the wrong times or fell in love too quickly under summer skies.

I once wrote a letter to someone who held my hand for less than a day but made me feel like I was a cathedral. I never mailed it. But every word was real.

That’s the thing — we don’t write because we expect a reply. We write because something in us needs to be witnessed, even if only by the page.

There are letters I burned. There are letters I buried. And there are some I reread when I need to remember that I am capable of depth — that even in silence, I was loving loudly.

Not everything needs to be shared to be sacred. Not every feeling needs an audience to be worthy.

Sometimes the act of writing is the release. Sometimes it's enough to know that you meant it — even if no one ever knows.

I think of those letters as emotional brushstrokes. Like Fauvist color — raw, bold, unapologetically placed. Not to be understood. Just to be felt.

Maybe one day I’ll read them all aloud in a room by the sea. Or maybe I won’t. Maybe the beauty is in their unsent state. A love left suspended in amber.

Letters I never sent. But still — every word was mine.

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Honeyed Light on a Restless Morning

Some mornings arrive too early — not by the clock, but by the soul.

You wake with your breath caught between two worlds, your sheets tangled like thoughts. The sun dares to spill across your room too tenderly, too honestly. You meant to sleep in. You meant to stay numb. But the light had other plans.

This morning, the light was honeyed — thick and golden, like something you could pour over your skin to make the ache easier to bear.

I stayed in bed longer than I should have. I watched the shadows move across the ceiling like a silent ballet. I reached for my journal and wrote nothing. Just touched the page.

Restless doesn’t always mean chaotic. Sometimes it just means you’re full of something unnamed. Longing, maybe. Or memory. Or a kind of soft anticipation.

I brewed coffee but didn’t drink it. Let the scent speak for itself. I opened the windows but didn’t look out. I played a song I couldn’t finish. I brushed my hair and braided it like someone might come by and ask how I slept.

No one came. But the braid stayed. So did the light.

I used to fight mornings like this — force productivity on top of mood, try to tidy the wildness out of myself. But I’m learning to let the morning have its way with me. To let the light touch everything I haven’t yet resolved. To let the restlessness be a kind of romance.

Because sometimes what we call distraction —is just desire, trying to reintroduce itself.

So I sat on the floor in my nightgown and let the moment unfold. Not with grace, but with presence.

There’s a beauty in starting the day not with ambition, but with attention. To your mood. To your breath. To the exact slant of light on your collarbone.

We don’t always wake up ready to conquer. Some days we just wake up ready to feel.

And that, I think, is enough.

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A Room of Perfume & Silence

There is a kind of magic that exists in stillness — not emptiness, but something richer. A room scented faintly with old jasmine, honeyed sandalwood, a whisper of last night’s rose. A silk robe draped over the back of a velvet chair. Light, not pouring in, but slipping sideways through sheer curtains.

This is where I keep the parts of myself I don’t explain. Not out of secrecy. But reverence.

I’ve always believed in the emotional weight of scent. Perfume is memory’s accomplice. One drop behind the ear, and suddenly I’m twenty-two again — somewhere in Barcelona, dancing barefoot on tile, writing poetry on napkins I would later throw away.

I don’t wear fragrance for anyone but me. I wear it to create a mood, to mark a moment, to seal a thought into the folds of my wrist.

In this room, I don’t speak aloud. Not because there’s no one to hear — but because silence is the only thing that listens properly. I read letters I never sent. I light candles I don’t need. I brush my hair like it’s the only sacred act left in the world. I rest.

And in that rest, I remember that sensuality isn’t performance — it’s presence. It’s a gaze held. A slow breath. A knowing hand on silk sheets.

So much of the world wants us loud and busy. It mistakes stillness for laziness, softness for weakness, gentleness for lack of ambition. But I’ve learned that stillness is a decision. A defense. A devotion.

There is power in a room that waits for you — in a space you’ve scented just for your own return. You don’t owe it to the world to be visible all the time. You don’t owe them a performance.

You owe yourself a place to soften.

This is mine.

A room of perfume and silence.

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The Art of Leaving Beautifully

Some people enter a room like wind. I’ve always preferred to exit like smoke.

There’s a quiet discipline in knowing when to go. To recognize the exact moment when presence begins to turn into pressure — when the wine tastes just slightly metallic, when the laughter feels borrowed, when your body leans toward the door before your mind catches up.

I don’t ghost. I drift. I gather my coat like a secret. I smile like a finale.

The art of leaving beautifully isn’t about escape. It’s about grace. It’s about resisting the ache to explain yourself to people who were never really listening. It’s about offering silence as your closing line — not as a weapon, but as a poem.

I’ve left dinner tables, parties, hotel rooms, relationships. Not with anger. But with satin gloves and perfume on the air. I’ve left emails unanswered. I’ve left dresses behind. I’ve left pieces of myself that no longer wanted to be held.

And I’ve learned that departures can be offerings. That a soft goodbye can echo louder than a slammed door. That leaving doesn’t always mean ending — sometimes it’s the most tender beginning.

There’s power in letting someone remember you as warmth. As elegance. As a detail they keep trying to describe to someone else.

I once walked out of a gallery without buying the painting I came for. It was too much, too intense, too everything — but I thought of it for months afterward. That’s how I want to be remembered. Not owned. Not clung to. Just felt.

So yes, I leave. But I leave with ceremony. With lipstick still perfect and the scent of garden roses trailing behind me. With eye contact. With a smile. With a memory offered like a glove dropped intentionally.

Because sometimes the most beautiful part of a story —is the way she walks away.

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“Have some fire. Be unstoppable. Be a force of nature. Be better than anyone here, and don’t give a damn what anyone thinks. You’re on your own. Be on your own.”

— Dr. Cristina Yang | Grey’s Anatomy

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“I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.”

— Mahatma Gandhi

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Me kissing my best friend before we go back to our boyfriends'.

Two Women Kissing in Nature (b. 1859)

— by Georges Rochegrosse

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Put this on my chastity belt.

Lock, 1911 Frank L. Koralewsky

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

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Her dress.... I want that hair!

The Sissi Trilogy + Costumes

Elisabeth in Bavaria's red & green dress in Sissi (1955) & Sissi - The Young Empress (1956).

// requested by anonymous

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You on your knees in front of me...

The Poet and the Saint (1868) by Gustave Moreau

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Red Lipstick & Reverie

There are objects we wear, not for practicality, but for memory. For softness. For power.

For me, it’s always been red lipstick.

It doesn’t matter the shade — whether it leans toward blood or cherry or velvet. What matters is the act of it. The slow, reverent glide. The way my reflection stiffens its spine as color touches skin. Red is not worn. It is inhabited.

I used to wear it on dates with strangers who told me I looked expensive but didn’t know how to read silence. I wore it under masks during the pandemic, just for myself. I wore it when I cried. When I didn’t want to cry. When I danced alone in the kitchen to Nina Simone. When I whispered goodbyes I never voiced aloud.

Red is a boundary. A surrender. A door you either knock on gently or kick wide open.

There’s a strange kind of intimacy in preparing for a moment that may never come. You paint your lips like someone might kiss them. You wear lace underneath a sweater as if someone might see it. You light a candle not for romance, but because the flicker steadies you.

That, to me, is what reverie feels like. A soft state of longing wrapped in glamour. Not for anyone else. Just for the ache itself.

I’ve never trusted people who say red lipstick is “too much.” Too much for what? For whom? For which unspoken rules? Let me be too much. Let me arrive lacquered in intention.

We all have something that steadies us — a ritual, a talisman, a texture that brings us back to ourselves. Mine just happens to come in a tube the color of courage.

So today I write this with red-stained fingertips and a mouth that tastes faintly of rose oil and resolve. No lover is arriving. No curtain is rising. And still — I wear it.

Because I remember who I am when I do.

Because reverie, after all, is a kind of return.