⸻

You spoke in glances,

Not quite yes, never quite no—

The kind of silence

You learn to translate in the dark.

I felt your absence

Even as you held my hand,

Wandering through closeness

Like we both forgot the map.

⸻

I’d play that tape again,

Where you almost say you’ll stay—

Not forever, not exactly,

Just for the length of a breath.

And I’d lie still like scenery,

Not to disturb your shape—

As if not moving

Could make you realer somehow.

⸻

Are you somewhere I stay?

In the echo between our names—

When I forget the time,

Do you wait there too?

Maybe love was the pause

We didn’t press through.

⸻

⸻

I kept the window open that night.

Not for air.

For a version of you

That knew how to return.

Even if it never did,

I liked imagining the wind might bring it close.

⸻

Are you somewhere I stay?

In the hush before I sleep—

Not a place, not a face,

But the warmth in retreat.

You never left all at once—

You dissolved in degrees.