Louder, Please.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” she screamed.

Every word hit my bloodstream like a drug.

So much. So much is wrong with me, I thought.

It was intoxicating. I felt seen.

I’d only experienced this a few times during my grief; usually, it involved paying a therapist to watch me cry through a computer screen.

But here was this woman raising her voice, her bare torso dangling off my mattress, stitching together the perfect words for my pain, right as she climaxed. They were sharp and concise, and so unintentionally profound.

There was something deeply wrong with me — even if I had held my life together for the past year, it was there, stirring inside of me, and in this moment, her body felt it all. My pain, becoming her pleasure.

None of the well-intended condolences or inquiries about how I was “holding up” ever connected. But this? To have my suffering acknowledged not in a moment of pity or fragility, but of dominance, felt strangely empowering.

I know words have the power to heal. I just didn’t expect them to be delivered in an orgasm.