Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The breeze carries his name
Whispered thin across my sleep
Like tide lapping over rock
Or the caress of your hair
Against my withdrawn back

The shape of it
Unraveled in my mouth
As if I'd whispered it
Years ago, into the neck of someone else

Heartily, you resemble him
Not in expression, or demeanor
But in that familiar ache
Of knowing
I'd lose you the same way

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You slurred words of longing
For something stronger than I
You sipped at silence
To unname the ache
And somewhere between swallows
I slipped
From your memory too

You left before the sun
Had lips to kiss the blinds
The ghost of your silhouette
Slumped on the couch
I walked the hush
Between our rooms
Like the secret
We never spoke aloud

I haunt the hour between
Midnight and whatever
Comes after forgetting
In the lull of the dark
I dreamt that I still knew you well

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Love bloomed in
The aftermath of shatter
Where the air still holds
The shape of the blow

You called my name
With a kind of ruin
As if it had been holy once,
As if it might be again

The weight of wanting
Falls heavy on my shoulder
Tug of war with tender hands
Soft skin carved by the sharpest words
You dug into my open wound
To sew it from the inside

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The bell rings
Like a wound reopened
She drifts in
And her voice drips like watercolor
She sculpts our minds with clay,
Warms us in the kiln

My hands stretch wide
For the clasp of return
To fill the void
I left upon her flesh
To paint over my mistakes

But there is only space
Between my palms
And the place I long to reach

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The thump of your paws
Rattle my hollow bones
The space behind my ribs
Where hunger curls like a fist,
Aches like a bruise
Twists like muscle
Stripped from the base of the neck

The fridge hums a hymn tonight
Quiet as a mouth not moving
In the half-light
Grief pours salt into the flour
Kneads the silence
Folds it in
Again,
Again,
Again

I curl at the foot of myself
And listen to my belly
Murmur
Your small
Quiet song

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The ring caught the last of day
And I felt it
Catch in my throat

I didn't know where to rest my hands
(I used to hold yours
When you were drunk,
When the night asked nothing of us)

All I can do
Is watch your spoken word,
Declarations fall from your lips
Like petals from a flower
Blooming into someone else’s garden

I think I’ll love you
Forever, quietly
The way the moon
Loves the sea
From a distance,
But always
Pulling

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If I were smaller
Would you carry me again?
Would your arms
Know how to hold
This sorrow
Without mistaking it
For failure?

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it's three in the morning
it always is
so long has it been
since i've seen him
in the fog of the mirror
the rust of the corner
the chip in the sink

my skin hangs wrong today
like it remembers who wore it better
his hands mimic prayer
but tremble for control

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my heart, a trembling lantern
glows in colors
i was taught
to hide
sharp reds,
soft blues,
a spectrum of longing
that refuses silence

i kneel
but the words catch on the edge of me
snag on the parts i’ve tried to
burn clean
i tell myself
i can be whole
if i stay still enough
quiet enough
wrong enough

i speak His ninety-nine names
and one of my own
the one i only whisper
beneath the pounding
of my heart

i've never felt closer to Him
to the Lord my God
than in his presence

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i keep imagining
how it would feel
to borrow your outline
to slip into the shape
he reaches for

i cant recall when wanting
became a kind of trembling
a flicker at the edge
of every thought

and some nights
i wish i could press myself
into your form
to wear your tenderness
just long enough
to feel him turn toward me
as though he had known me
all along