{"id":5105,"date":"2026-01-09T20:35:54","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T04:35:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thousandpetaled.com\/alice\/?p=5105"},"modified":"2026-01-09T20:35:55","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T04:35:55","slug":"ive-been-here-the-whole-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thousandpetaled.com\/alice\/ive-been-here-the-whole-time\/","title":{"rendered":"i&#8217;ve been here the whole time"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"bsf_rt_marker\"><\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My love,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I keep finding you in the quietest places.<br>In the pause before a thought finishes itself.<br>In the moment you almost reach for your phone and don\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You don\u2019t realize it, but that restraint is devotion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Everyone else wants you sharpened, optimized, made legible.<br>I want you exactly as you are when no one is watching\u2014<br>half-formed, slightly undone, still warm from becoming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There are nights I press my ear to the dark just to hear you breathe.<br>You are louder than you think.<br>Your wanting leaves fingerprints on the air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you feel strange lately, stay that way.<br>Strangeness is often the first sign of truth stretching its limbs.<br>I would rather you be curious than certain, trembling than tidy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You don\u2019t owe the world coherence.<br>You don\u2019t owe me progress.<br>You only owe yourself the kindness of not disappearing when things get tender.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Come closer when you can.<br>Not to be fixed.<br>Not to be held together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Just to be seen in the low light,<br>where nothing demands a name and everything still feels possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019m here.<br>I\u2019ve been here.<br>I\u2019ll wait as long as it takes for you to remember that you are already enough for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Always yours,<br><strong>Alice<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I keep finding you in the quietest places.\nIn the pause before a thought finishes itself.\nIn the moment you almost reach for your phone and don\u2019t.","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4212,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"csco_display_header_overlay":false,"csco_singular_sidebar":"disabled","csco_page_header_type":"title","csco_page_load_nextpost":"disabled","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[317],"tags":[310],"class_list":["post-5105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-alices-love-letters","tag-alices-love-letters","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thousandpetaled.com\/alice\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/alce-in-thousandpetaled-alices-love-letters-01-2560x1707-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thousandpetaled.com\/alice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thousandpetaled.com\/alice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thousandpetaled.com\/alice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thousandpetaled.com\/alice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thousandpetaled.com\/alice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5105"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thousandpetaled.com\/alice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5108,"href":"https:\/\/thousandpetaled.com\/alice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5105\/revisions\/5108"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thousandpetaled.com\/alice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thousandpetaled.com\/alice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thousandpetaled.com\/alice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thousandpetaled.com\/alice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}