We live in the spaces
between what is and what could be—
in the pause before the next step,
where the air is full of everything
we forgot to say

I write this in the quiet spaces,
where the world’s noise fades, and only you remain
I’m learning, slowly,
that love doesn’t always scream;
sometimes it whispers in the dark,
in the shared silence of a moment,
in the glance that says everything without a word

There’s a comfort in this quiet,
in knowing that we don’t need to shout
to prove what we feel
You have a way of making silence speak louder than anything,
of making every inch of space
between us feel like home

I don’t need to see it all at once
I don’t need to understand every part
What matters is this—
the stillness where you
and I are

Yours,
Lover

The tune stays, persistent,
a ghost in my mind,
hovering just out of reach—
not a song,
not yet,

just a rhythm I hum
into the hollow of memory

I try everything:
apps that listen,
algorithms that promise
I hum and hum,

my voice shaky, uneven,
but no machine knows the language
of longing
I scour playlists,

search through archives,
type fragments into search bars,

grasping for something
I’m not sure even exists

Each failure makes the tune sharper,
louder, crueler
Years pass, and it lingers
A quiet ache folded
into the back of my thoughts
I stop searching,
but it doesn’t stop following
Then one day, in a café,
the song finds me
It slips from the speakers,
so soft I almost miss it
And then—there it is,
every note, every beat,
the rhythm I have carried for so long
I freeze
The world tilts as I listen,
fingers trembling on my cup
I am there,

back in the mustard fields,
the mango trees,

the laughter
I don’t cry,
but something deep inside me shifts,
like a door opening
to let in the light
The song
The song
The song
is Real

"Beware!" they cry, the labels shouting,
in bold black ink on every carton,
a silent dirge for our carefree days.
Caffeine? Cancer. Baby shampoo?
Cancer. The air? Oh yes, even the air.

"Why stop there?" I mutter, peeling a banana.
Does it whisper secrets of formaldehyde
as I break its spine?
"This banana is known to the state of California
to cause despair in lab rats," it might say,
if it could speak past the peel.

"Prop 65 follows you," says my toaster.
It sparks. "You are glowing,
a walking hazard zone,
dripping BPA-laced tears into your coffee."

"Not everything has a label," I reply.
The tree outside—free of warnings,
branches unapologetic as they sway.
But wait. I catch a whiff of its resin.
That familiar tang of maybe-malignancy.

"Your tree, too," the toaster smirks,
"Nature is not immune.
Your lungs inhale its carcinogenic bouquet.
California sees all,
labels all, fears all."

I exhale sharply.
"One day," I snap, "I'll wake up,
look at my hand, and see
‘WARNING: This skin
contains trace amounts of existence,
a substance known to cause death
in 100% of cases.’”

The toaster blinks. "Too late.
You already knew that."

You were a season I couldn’t keep,
a moment carved in sunlight,
fading as the earth turned.
Yet, even now,
when the echoes of your name
have settled into quiet,
you remain, not as longing,
but as a breath I hold
when the world feels too loud.

It isn’t you I ache for,
but the colors you brought—
soft golds of laughter,
stormy grays of understanding,
the blue of your quiet courage
painting the edges of my days.

When I stand in someone else’s orbit,
a different warmth touching my face,
you’re not a shadow between us
but a constellation far away,
a map of where I’ve been,
not where I’m going.

I love you still,
not as the dream I once wove,
but as the truth I found in knowing you—
the way you reminded me
to believe in kindness,
to carry hope like a torch
even when the wind howled.

Forever isn’t a chain;
it’s the way I smile
when a song catches me unaware,
the way the scent of rain
carries me back to your laughter,
the way I see pieces of you
in the courage of strangers.

You are not my forever love,
but you are my forever lesson,
a memory that walks beside me,
not in longing, but in gratitude.

I can’t quite place the feeling—
like I’ve known you forever
but still just met you.
Maybe this is what love feels like,
familiar and new at the same time,
too close and too far,
woven into everything that has ever come before,
and nothing at all.