Hungry, Naked & Breathless

This piece didn’t begin now.

It began in my twenties.

Back when I still ended up in dimly lit pubs with loud music and quiet thoughts … back when I was a little guarded, a little bruised, trying to feel something through a drink in my hand and a wall around my heart.

He walked in with friends of friends.

I don’t remember much about the room … but I remember him noticing me.

And then… he didn’t hesitate.

He came and sat beside me,

looked me straight in the eyes,

and said something

I’ve never forgotten:

“You captivate me.”

There may have been more words … but that’s the part that stayed.

The part that landed.

The part that pierced.

In that moment, something in me caught … my breath, my guard, my sense of self.

I felt seen.

What followed was brief … but intense.

A connection that felt immediate, visceral, consuming.

The kind that doesn’t ask permission before it rushes in.

There was a night … maybe two … where everything was heightened.

Chemistry, emotion, alcohol, vulnerability …

And then… just as quickly as it arrived… it shifted.

I drove home.

Hours away.

And instead of clarity … there was confusion.

Instead of continuation … there was silence.

That feeling of being chosen so intensely … followed by nothing.

I wrote Hungry, Naked, Breathless about a week later.

Unedited. Unfiltered. Just… poured out.

I even put it in an envelope once.

Addressed it.

Thought about sending it.

I never did.

Because before I could make sense of anything …

confusion turned into anger …

and anger turned into something heavier.

Grief.

I found out shortly after we met… he had died.

The same man who had looked at me like that … who had made me feel that alive … was gone.

A shooting star.

Bright. Brief.

Gone before I could understand what I had witnessed.

For years… I didn’t realize what stayed behind.

But it did.

That moment… those feelings…

they didn’t fully move through me.

They lodged somewhere quieter.

Somewhere deeper.

Somewhere between my ribs.

Fast forward to now.

After burnout … nervous system and hormonal chaos … chronic fatigue ... long stretches of feeling flat and disconnected …

I asked myself one question:

When have I felt truly alive?

And this was one of the memories that came back.

Clear. Immediate. Undeniable.

So I found the poem again…

and this time…

I gave it a voice. What I didn’t realize at first was that this process was becoming a form of healing through music, something that allowed the feeling to finally move instead of staying stuck.

Nothing will ever replace real music made by human hands and hearts.

A voice cracking with emotion.

Fingers on strings.

Energy shared in a room.

Nothing replaces that.

But these tools … helped me move something that had been stuck.

So the poem became music … and then it kept evolving.

Sultry.

Gritty.

Primal.

Rhythmic.

Alive.

And somewhere along the way… the story loosened.

It stopped being about him.

It became about movement. Release. Letting something finally flow.

This piece doesn’t want to live in one version.

It wants to move.

So this post is its home.

I’ll keep adding to it as the rest unfolds.

This was written in my twenties.

A fleeting, powerful moment that ended in grief.

Not a current story.

Not about anyone in my life now.

Just… something that needed to move.

And now… it finally has.

Sincerely,

honouring & letting go