Long-Distance Love

I. The Distance Begins in Silence

The moment you leave is not a sound,

not the screech of wheels,

nor the sigh of a door closing.

It begins in the air—

how it forgets your shape

within minutes of your absence,

how the scent of your skin is swallowed

by wind and ordinary time.

I wait inside the silence

as if it might still echo you.

But silence is faithful only to itself.

It keeps no memory.

It gives nothing back.

II. Time Zones as a Language

You live in the language of tomorrow,

where my mornings are your midnight thoughts.

The world has split us

into hemispheres and habits,

coffee cups and cold floors

that never meet.

I set my alarm

to wake at your 3 a.m.,

just to catch the ghost of your voice

in a whisper of connection—

thin as breath against glass.

Our love is an atlas

with pages torn between days.

Still, I trace my fingers

along the ridges of time

to where you might be thinking of me.

III. The Glowing Screen is Not You

You arrive pixelated,

flickering into a frame

my hands can never hold.

You speak in fragments

that lag and stutter,

as if the universe resists

our right to be heard together.

I smile at your frozen face,

my heart guessing

what came between the words.

Even technology grows tired

of stretching across oceans

for us.

IV. The Ritual of Missing

I have named the spaces you left:

this pillow, your echo;

this mug, your lips;

this hallway, your fading footsteps.

I light candles like a rite

for something absent yet sacred.

Each morning,

I write letters I never send,

folding them into clouds of thought,

releasing them into the wind

with the hope it knows your name.

My longing is a prayer

without religion—

a faith built solely

on your return.

V. We Love in the Future Tense

You and I,

we do not speak in the now.

We speak in promise.

Every sentence begins with:

"When we..."

"When we walk by the river again..."

"When we fall asleep without a screen between..."

"When I reach for you and you’re real..."

Hope has become

our shared language—

clumsy but honest.

Every message a lighthouse

calling across the dark.

VI. The Ache of Almost

Once,

you were brushing your teeth

and I was cooking dinner—

a casual overlap in virtual time.

For a moment,

we existed inside the same ordinary.

And it felt like grace.

It felt like we had stolen back

something the hours had taken.

But even that was fleeting.

You paused to rinse,

and the connection dropped.

Silence again.

Even "almost"

has its weight.

VII. The Body Remembers

My hands still shape

the outline of your sleep.

My skin burns

where your absence lingers longest—

the space just below the collarbone,

the wrist where you once held

my pulse in your thumb.

Desire is not impatient.

It is a long-distance runner

with blistered feet

and no finish line in sight.

VIII. Letters in the Wind

I wrote your name

into the dust on the windowsill.

I left it there

to be taken by the wind

as proof that you are real

even when you are not here.

If I could send my breath

in an envelope,

I would mail it

each night

with a kiss tucked inside.

But you’d only open it

days too late—

the kiss gone stale,

the breath turned ghost.

IX. We Are Still Becoming

Love is not a static thing.

It grows in the soil of waiting.

It learns to bloom

without sunlight.

It listens better

when words are rare.

Some days, I believe

our love is stronger

because it must be.

Because it cannot depend

on touch or time.

Only trust.

X. The Day You Return

There will be no parade.

No orchestra swelling.

Only a door—

finally opening.

And there you will be:

not perfect,

not changed,

just here.

And I—

with all this practiced waiting—

will simply say:

"Welcome back."

Then I will reach for you,

not in hope,

but in presence.

Not in longing,

but in the quiet relief

of enough.