Beneath All

I met you on a Sunday

when the rain forgot how to fall straight—

sideways, like fate unsure of its own intent,

and your smile cracked something

I hadn’t meant to carry.

You didn’t arrive like a storm,

more like the hush right after—

when windows fog and the world pauses,

like it’s been waiting for you to speak.

We didn’t fit at first.

Your sentences were constellations,

mine were half-drawn maps

to places I hadn’t yet forgiven.

But you sat with my silence

like it was a language,

touched it gently,

like a musician learning an instrument

with broken strings

and still managing a song.

I don’t know when

the edges stopped cutting,

only that one day

you touched my hand

and all the ghosts

ran out of reasons to stay.

It’s not the way we dance,

but the space between the steps—

how we let each other stumble,

and somehow call it grace.

Some nights,

you still trace the outline of my shadow

like it holds a secret

you were born to unlock.

And I—

I memorize the way you mispronounce “sapphire”

as if the jewel could be softer

if spoken with love.

What we have isn’t perfect.

It’s bruised and bruising,

mismatched in places,

and so damn real

it hurts to hold sometimes.

But every time the world breaks open,

you are the only constant

in a sky I don’t understand.

And maybe that’s enough.

Maybe that’s everything.