You sit beside me
like a flame behind glass,
close enough to warm,
too hot to touch.

There is softness in you,
but I’ve learned
it’s not mine to hold.
It lives in the quiet between gestures,
a half-turned head,
a question swallowed
before it breaks the surface.

I memorize the way you sleep,
not because I’m afraid you’ll leave,
but because I know you already do,
in moments,
in silences,
in the way your body curls away
when you dream.

You love me
the way the moon loves the sea:
constant,
but pulling.
And I pretend not to feel the tide
dragging pieces of me out
just to reach you.

Sometimes I think
if I could just hold your name
long enough
in my mouth,
you’d remember what it felt like
to be held.

But I don’t say that.
I just sit beside you,
smiling soft,
while all this beauty aches inside me
with nowhere to go.