I was a man of quiet rooms,
Of softened steps and shadowed blooms,
Content to let the hours pass
Like wind that slips through open grass.
I knew the comfort of alone,
The steady hush I called my own.
No need to fill the empty air,
No restless pull for someone there.
And still I keep a piece of that—
A winding road, a worn-out path,
Two wheels beneath me, sky stretched wide,
The world made small on a solitary ride.
The hum of tires, the measured breath,
A moving meditation’s depth.
No voice but wind, no hand to hold—
A kind of quiet I’ve always known.
And then you came—no sudden flame,
No thunderclap to stake a claim—
But something slow, and deep, and wide,
A turning of the inward tide.
Now silence feels a different weight,
A space that leans, that seems to wait.
The quiet bends, it calls your name,
And nothing else can sound the same.
I find I want your voice nearby,
Your presence stitched through low and high.
Not just in moments bright and rare,
But woven through the everywhere.
I want the rhythm of your days,
The ordinary, countless ways
A life is built—not grand, but true—
With shared most things between us two.
To bring you where my people are,
No distance held, no sense of far.
To watch you laugh among them all,
And feel like I have something whole.
But love, I’m learning, does not erase
The need for sky, for open space.
And I will still, some mornings, ride—
Just me, the road, the quiet side.
Not to escape what we have grown,
But to return more fully known.
To carry back, in steady breath,
A deeper calm, a softer depth.
It startles me, this quiet need—
Not born of lack, or want, or greed—
But something steady, clear, and strong:
A sense that this is where I belong.
I used to think that love would be
A thing that came, then set me free.
But this feels different—soft, yet sure—
A wish to stay, to build, endure.
And if this longing has a name,
It isn’t fire, or rush, or flame—
It’s simply this, both calm and true:
A life that holds both me—and you.
© 2026 Shawn Oen. All rights reserved.
Apr 8
Apr 8, 2026 at 3:30 PM UTC
I was a man of quiet rooms,
Of softened steps and shadowed blooms,
Content to let the hours pass
Like wind that slips through open grass.
I knew the comfort of alone,
The steady hush I called my own.
No need to fill the empty air,
No restless pull for someone there.
And still I keep a piece of that—
A winding road, a worn-out path,
Two wheels beneath me, sky stretched wide,
The world made small on a solitary ride.
The hum of tires, the measured breath,
A moving meditation’s depth.
No voice but wind, no hand to hold—
A kind of quiet I’ve always known.
And then you came—no sudden flame,
No thunderclap to stake a claim—
But something slow, and deep, and wide,
A turning of the inward tide.
Now silence feels a different weight,
A space that leans, that seems to wait.
The quiet bends, it calls your name,
And nothing else can sound the same.
I find I want your voice nearby,
Your presence stitched through low and high.
Not just in moments bright and rare,
But woven through the everywhere.
I want the rhythm of your days,
The ordinary, countless ways
A life is built—not grand, but true—
With shared most things between us two.
To bring you where my people are,
No distance held, no sense of far.
To watch you laugh among them all,
And feel like I have something whole.
But love, I’m learning, does not erase
The need for sky, for open space.
And I will still, some mornings, ride—
Just me, the road, the quiet side.
Not to escape what we have grown,
But to return more fully known.
To carry back, in steady breath,
A deeper calm, a softer depth.
It startles me, this quiet need—
Not born of lack, or want, or greed—
But something steady, clear, and strong:
A sense that this is where I belong.
I used to think that love would be
A thing that came, then set me free.
But this feels different—soft, yet sure—
A wish to stay, to build, endure.
And if this longing has a name,
It isn’t fire, or rush, or flame—
It’s simply this, both calm and true:
A life that holds both me—and you.
© 2026 Shawn Oen. All rights reserved.
