Beneath the Pulse

I meant it—

the first time your name

tripped off my tongue like a secret

trying not to shatter.

It wasn’t romantic,

not in the candy-store version of love

sold in thin-wrapped lines.

It was just real—

quiet,

like warm hands finding each other

in a room full of cold eyes.

You didn’t ask me to fall.

You just stood still long enough

for gravity to do what it does.

Time, it seems, isn’t linear

when we talk the way we do—

you, unspooling threads of memory

like old film reels

and me,

watching your stories flicker

across the walls of a life

we haven’t fully lived yet.

There’s something oddly holy

about brushing against you

in moments so small

they’d slip unnoticed—

the shared silence

after bad dreams,

your voice cracking mid-laugh,

the way your shoulder rises

before you cry.

One morning,

you looked at me like you’d forgotten

what I was made of—

and I saw it.

Not pain. Not betrayal.

But distance,

like a hallway stretching longer

between two rooms

we once danced in.

Still,

I stayed.

Not out of duty,

but out of a wild, unwavering belief

that even stars burn out

and reappear

as something else—

fiercer,

gentler,

still carrying their fire.

And maybe that’s us.

Not perfect,

but possible.

Not easy,

but worth the ache.

I don’t need certainty—

only the chance

to keep showing up

where your shadow ends

and your light begins.