The Quiet of Loving You

I hold you softly,
not in my arms,
but in the hollow spaces between words.
In the silence of a breath
just before it falls into sound,
you are there,
untouched by my trembling need to say your name.

I trace your shadow
in the stillness of a crowded room,
a thousand unspoken syllables
pressed between my teeth.
My gaze lingers where it shouldn’t,
but never long enough for you to notice.

It is not sadness, this silence,
but a garden of secrets,
where every petal blooms in quiet reverence.
I water it with patience,
sun it with longing,
but never dare to pluck the flowers.

Because loving you
without your knowing
feels like a kind of worship—
a prayer meant for no one to hear.
And so I hold it,
this wordless offering,
fragile and infinite
in the cradle of my chest.

I don’t believe
loneliness can stretch further than this—
a taut thread pulled to its breaking point,
and still, it holds.

The night presses in
with no edges to catch me,
only air too thin
to carry my weight.

I speak,
and the words fall soundless,
a language meant for someone
who isn’t here.

The quiet swells,
fills every room,
sinks into my skin.

I wonder if loneliness
has a shape
or if it’s just an absence,
a shadow too clever
to cast light.

I don’t believe
I could be more unseen
than I am now—
a ghost who hasn’t died,
a presence forgotten
by the space it once filled.

Romance has died in me today.
Its breath, once warm,
now escapes in cold sighs,
the ache no longer sweet,
the song no longer sings.

The roses I held close
wilted, thorns dull against my palms—
even their pain feels distant now.

Love’s fire, they said,
never truly fades,
but here I stand,
surrounded by its gray ash,
its promises burnt,
its whispers gone silent.

The words I once poured
like wine into waiting cups,
spill no more—
the bottle, empty.

It isn’t anger,
nor sorrow,
but a quiet hollow
where romance once bloomed.

Perhaps it will return,
a seed carried by some kinder wind,
but for now,
the garden lies bare

Is it better to burn for someone
who cannot feel the flame?
To have your heart beat against
a silence that never answers back,
than to sit in stillness,
untouched and unscarred?

Is longing its own kind of gift?
Does the ache of hope
redeem the emptiness
of never knowing desire?

I wonder…
is it worse to dream of a face
that will never turn your way,
or to live with no face at all
to fill the quiet spaces?

They say love, even unanswered,
is better than absence.
But some nights,
the hollow echoes louder
than if there had been nothing
to long for at all.

To the world, I am whole,
a quiet river flowing steady and sure.
But beneath the surface,
there is a storm—a name whispered in the dark,
a fire that only I can feel.

I hold it close, this hidden love,
like a secret carved into stone,
sharp and silent,
forever unseen.

You don’t know the weight of my gaze,
how it lingers just long enough
to memorize the curve of your smile.
You don’t hear the words I’ve swallowed,
each one tied to a hope
I dare not set free.

Unrequited, they call it,
as though love could ever be one-sided,
when it fills every corner of me.
But you remain untouched,
a distant star,
and I, earthbound,
left only with the glow of your light.

So I walk among the world,
a keeper of something precious,
a love too tender for words,
too fragile for air,
too real for you to ever know.

Today,
she wore the quiet magic of the woods,
a lightness in her step that whispered
of leaves brushing against soft winds.

Her eyes caught the sun,
dancing with a mischief only stars could know,
and her smile—
a secret spell,
woven from wildflowers and shadows.

Today,
she moved as if the earth tilted
just to watch her,
an elfin grace
that lingered long after the moment passed.

The winters sun stretches its long fingers,
lighting the edges of the world,
but you walk untouched,
a shadow I can never embrace.

Often I speak your name in the quiet
where no echoes return,
only the hollow ache of air
that once hoped to hold a voice.

Your smile is a fleeting bird,
perched on a branch too high,
its song is a melody meant for   another.
I, I  am the earth beneath,
silent, steady, unnoticed.

I build bridges in my mind,
reaching toward your horizon,
but they crumble with each step,
leaving me stranded in my own longings.

Love, I have learned,
is not always a two-way river;
sometimes it is a flood
drowning one while the other
stands dry, staring at the distant tide.

Still, I carry the weight of you,
not in bitterness, but in the quiet truth
that hearts do not always meet.
Why, even the moon has nights
when it waits unseen,
faithful only to its endless orbit.