The orchid leans on the windowsill,
its bruised petals curling inward,
a lover retreating from touch.
I press my fingers to the ache behind my eyes,
tears hovering like syrup, slow and amber,
binding the moment to the marrow of memory.
Time drips thick,
a sweetness heavy with regret,
its weight both burden and balm.

You spoke love as if it were a fragile thing,
delicate as twilight slipping between hands.
Your voice held the softness of midwife palms,
unafraid to cradle what could not yet breathe.
I clung to those words,
their sweetness lingering like salt on my tongue,
until they dissolved into silence,
the aftertaste of everything unspoken.

The sea rises in my dreams,
its waves stinging, cleansing,
dragging away the grains of unsaid good-byes.
The horizon remains distant, unreachable,
but I think of syrup’s deliberate fall,
how even the slowest drop reaches its end.
I carry the ache of transformation,
a tender weight,
and let the salt beneath my skin
become the shape of healing.