Love Rises

The first time I saw Anya I was shirtless and holding an axe.
It was June, the weather balmy and Anya was beautiful, but that didn’t matter because I was drowning in my own grief.
Anya wasn’t meant to be my saviour.
I wasn’t meant to be hers.
A perfect summer, an idyllic island, a stream of stolen nights.
All bandaids on an open wound.
If we were going to live again, she deserved more than the fractured shards of the broken creature I’d become.
She deserved love.