One stolen hour.
That's all it was.
Sixty minutes carved from a life
that wasn't supposed to include this.
But one hour wasn't enough.
How could it be?
I'd been empty for so long,
one taste just showed me the depth of my starvation.
Now I'm caught between the circumstances that say I can't have this,
and the mortality that says I'm running out of time to try.
The stolen moment reminding me of everything I'll probably never get.
The slow build of intimacy,
the luxury of time,
the ability to love someone fully
without hiding, without fear,
that this is borrowed, this is limited, this will end.
But I keep reaching and taking these fragments,
hoarding them like a dragon hoards gold,
knowing they'll probably never add up to the life I want
but unable to stop trying to build it anyway.
So here I am,
hungry but unable to feast,
dying slowly while trying to steal enough moments
to pretend I've lived.
The circumstances may not change.
The mortality won't pause.
But I'll keep grasping for these hours,
keep pressing my body against the limits of what's allowed.
Because even if I never get enough,
at least I tried, I tasted it.
At least I knew, for a few stolen hours,
what it felt like.
Mizuyōkaii, 2025
