new love, trembling

There are things I no longer touch, not because they were evil, but because they asked too much of me. I learned that devotion is not loud. It is a daily returning. It is choosing to stay when leaving would be easier.

to miss you is to prove that you exist somewhere beyond me.
and that thought alone is enough to keep me tethered.

I keep finding you in the quietest places.
In the pause before a thought finishes itself.
In the moment you almost reach for your phone and don’t.

i leave the light on for something that has never arrived.
not out of habit, but out of hope—the kind that lingers in corners, soft and unshaken.

it happened quietly, and then all at once.
no warning, no careful unfolding—just a sudden shift where everything became you.

i loved you before i understood what love meant.
before language caught up to feeling, before time gave it edges.