I saw you before the morning
took the edges off the world.
You were a question,
a half-drawn breath
in the corners of every room.
Your name was a bruise
I kept pressing at
in the hope it would turn gold.
Alchemy of self depravity...
I tried to measure you
with syllables,
with sleepless nights,
with the soft arithmetic of wanting.
But you were always too much or too little:
a truth that flickered
in and out of my hands
like a flame trying to speak.
I counted the minutes
as though love could be tallied
like ledger lines
in a ruined cathedral.
But you were
never present in the same ledger.
You were a footnote,
a rumor of light
beneath a door I could not open.
I gifted you my body,
my hunger,
my most ungovernable dawns,
you touched them
like one touches a wound
to see if it still bleeds.
I asked for a reflection,
just a mirror.
Not love, not reciprocity
just acknowledgment
that I was visible to you
beyond the margin of polite formality.
But you looked past me
as though I were a metaphor
too inconvenient
to make literal.
And so I carry you
like an open question:
a city at war with its own architecture,
with streets that lead
only to silence.
I have loved you
with the patience of ruin,
with the devotion of one who learns
to speak the language of ache.
But here is what remains
Beyond your face I see with eyes closed
Hoping to touch a mirage by setting myself alight
Just to prolong feeling 'you', in the weight of my pain.
The poem does not return.
The name does not come back.
Only this:
a body still reaching
toward something that never held it.
And in that reaching
I find my own pulse
defiant, unclaimed,
still loud enough
to drown out your quiet.
Feb 25
Feb 25, 2026 at 9:07 PM UTC
I saw you before the morning
took the edges off the world.
You were a question,
a half-drawn breath
in the corners of every room.
Your name was a bruise
I kept pressing at
in the hope it would turn gold.
Alchemy of self depravity...
I tried to measure you
with syllables,
with sleepless nights,
with the soft arithmetic of wanting.
But you were always too much or too little:
a truth that flickered
in and out of my hands
like a flame trying to speak.
I counted the minutes
as though love could be tallied
like ledger lines
in a ruined cathedral.
But you were
never present in the same ledger.
You were a footnote,
a rumor of light
beneath a door I could not open.
I gifted you my body,
my hunger,
my most ungovernable dawns,
you touched them
like one touches a wound
to see if it still bleeds.
I asked for a reflection,
just a mirror.
Not love, not reciprocity
just acknowledgment
that I was visible to you
beyond the margin of polite formality.
But you looked past me
as though I were a metaphor
too inconvenient
to make literal.
And so I carry you
like an open question:
a city at war with its own architecture,
with streets that lead
only to silence.
I have loved you
with the patience of ruin,
with the devotion of one who learns
to speak the language of ache.
But here is what remains
Beyond your face I see with eyes closed
Hoping to touch a mirage by setting myself alight
Just to prolong feeling 'you', in the weight of my pain.
The poem does not return.
The name does not come back.
Only this:
a body still reaching
toward something that never held it.
And in that reaching
I find my own pulse
defiant, unclaimed,
still loud enough
to drown out your quiet.
