You whispered a word

not just a word,

but a key carved in shadow,

a syllable stitched from stars I hadn't known to look for.

You held open a doorway

to a place I didn’t know existed,

a realm folded between glances,

where sarcasm balances like truth dressed in a joke,
and meaning hides in the pause between breaths.

I walked that edge with you

fragile, unreal
and still, it felt more true than anything

we could say out loud.

Most wouldn’t notice what we did.

It sank below skin, 
a silence louder than we could name.


We didn’t want the pressure,

but we felt the weight, and gravity was patient,

and naming it felt heavier

than pretending it wasn’t there.

How can someone burn like that

so kind, so distant
like a star shining where no one looks?

I hated how I noticed his loneliness,

how it curled behind his smile

like smoke from a fire that never went out.

In the chaos, he was gentle

a storm with soft hands.

He kissed my forehead

like he was afraid to leave a mark,

and in that second,

I wasn’t invisible.

But I don’t want to fix him.

He is not a mystery to solve.

He is a poem I am allowed to read

without rewriting the end.