You touch me like a whisper meant for no one,
Soft, fleeting, fading when the world looks away.
I reach, not to hold, but to be held,
In the quiet ache where your silences stay.

Would you notice if I disappeared in parts?
If I cracked my ribs just to make you look back?
Would you still see me in bruised silhouettes,
Or am I just the echo you never unpacked?

My mother taught me how to be still for others,
How to swallow storms and call it peace.
But I am not a pond, love. I am the sea,
And you sail me blindfolded, begging for ease.

You cried at the lake, and I broke with you.
Every bone in me folded like paper in rain.
I said the wrong thing. God, I always do,
But I’d drown a thousand times to lift your pain.

At night, there's a voice, not mine, not yours,
Singing about dancers and distance and fate.
It tells me I’m a line without a hook,
A verse unfinished, a heart too late.

You say I’m sweet, you say I’m kind.
But only when no one hears.
And I let you, every time,
Because rejection is better than disappearing.

So if you ever return, soaked and shaking,
Know that I am still standing where the tide breaks,
Not waiting, not hoping, just aching
In the place where your love never wakes.

I know I shouldn’t ache like this, I do,
You were never mine, not in word or vow.
Yet watching you with him, some part withdrew,
Like losing something sacred, even now.

I saw the signs, you turned your gaze away,
Laughed softer, answered slower, broke the thread.
But still I stitched my hope into each day,
Pretending you were paused—not gone, not led.

You never lied. You never called it love.
I wrote those dreams in ink you never touched.
You said “we’re friends,” and I said “close enough,”
While shaking hands betrayed I cared too much.

Now he walks with you where I once would dare,
My silence roars, and still I call it fair.

I loved you in the hush between two sighs,
Where glances flickered, stars that lost their flame.
Your voice, though gentle, bore no soft replies,
No echo shaped itself around my name.

I offered verses, filaments of grace,
Fine bridges spun from breath and tethered fire,
But you, like frost that veils a summer's face,
Withheld the warmth my trembling hopes required.

You did not break me. No, you were too kind.
Yet kindness, cold, can cut like polished steel.
A smile, misplaced, can hollow out the mind;
And silence teaches wounds too deep to heal.

So I retreat. Not bitter, but erased—
A violin, unheld, in silence cased.
Still strung with song that none will understand,
Still turned toward you, an unanswered command.

He is to me what kings are to their knight,
Who grants me trials that shape and make me strong.
He is the dawn that banishes the night,
Who gives me truth when all the world feels wrong.

He is a compass when I lose my way,
A steady hand when storms begin to rise.
His words are stars that help me not to stray,
A spark of fire beneath the cloudy skies.

He is to me the book the wise revere,
Each page a path to knowledge deep and wide.
He speaks, and thoughts long buried reappear,
A tide of wonder I no more can hide.

In every lesson, he bestows me grace—
A guide, a torch, the sun upon my face.