I lost you once
when your voice turned to silence

Then again,
when even the silence stopped feeling like you

I know your eyes
like a midsummer nap
hazy, golden, pulling me under
soft as the hush before sleep
burning like light through closed lids

I remember them too well
too violently
like a dream that wakes me gasping
God, I wish I could forget
but forgetting means
losing you twice

She sits by the light
half-awake, half-dreaming
the kind of morning where silence
feels like a conversation

Her hair, undone by the wind
and her eyes
they hold a language deeper than words
a pause between thoughts
a moment before the rain

There’s something in her gaze
not just beauty, but a knowing,
like she’s seen the sun rise a thousand times
and still finds it worth watching

She wears the weight of the world
like an old sweatshirt
loose, familiar,
but never quite forgotten

And I wonder, does she know?
That the way she exists
unfiltered, unbroken
is a kind of poetry
no one can write down

They’ve lived with me long enough  
to know my silences  
to settle into the spaces I stopped filling  
Sadness leans against the doorframe
arms crossed like it knows I’ve been avoiding eye contact
Anger curls up by the heater
restless, shifting, but quieter than it used to be
Disappointment is sprawled across the couch
staring at the ceiling

Fear stays in the corner
knees tucked to its chest
flinching when the lights flicker
Regret drags its fingers along the table
murmuring what-ifs under its breath
Longing presses its face to the window
watching a world that never let it belong

They have been good to me, in their own way
Kept me company when I had none
Held my hands steady when the world blurred
I used to know how to hold them back
Now I can barely hold them at all

So I take them to the flea market
Set up a stall
Or two
Lay them out carefully, one by one
Line them up under flickering lights
a little display of secondhand emotions

I set the prices low
Marked down
No Refunds
Not because they are cheap
Or unwanted
but because no one pays full price  
for something heavy
something with a history
Too worn, too strange, too much

People come
They stare for a while,  
And leave

By evening, the stall is still full
Grief, longing, heartbreak
all of them waiting,  
watching people pass

By morning, they are gone
Not sold
Not taken
Just—
gone

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