MY SWEDISH MAN

I wait,

In the hollow space between breaths,

Where silence clings to every second,

A weight, a whisper,

Heavy with unspoken words,

And all that is left is the ache of longing.

I have learned to trace the edges of absence,

Fingers trembling,

As if the space where you should be

Is a thing I can touch,

A thing I can hold,

Even if only for a moment.

Each night, I curl beneath the weight of the moon,

Its cold, pale face a reminder of what is distant—

The warmth of your hands,

The softness of your voice,

How it lingers in my veins,

Even in the spaces where you are not.

The days stretch thin,

Like paper pulled too tight,

And I ache with the knowing that time

Is a cruel companion,

Moving too swiftly or too slowly,

But never in the rhythm of my heart.

I ache for you,

In the deep places where light does not reach,

Where the walls tremble with longing,

Where your name,

Soft and tender,

Echoes through the chambers of my chest,

A song that neither starts nor ends—

But simply is.

I have been a fool,

To think I could live without you,

As if the hollow spaces between my ribs

Could breathe in place of you.

But no,

I know now that I was wrong.

I was made for this—

To ache for you,

To feel the burn of love

In every scar,

In every sigh,

In every second where I miss you

More than I can bear.

Yet, in the tenderness of this pain,

There is sweetness.

For what is love if not the delicate balance

Between agony and grace?

Between the fire that consumes

And the coolness that soothes?

You are the flame and the balm,

The wound and the healing,

And I long for you with a quiet madness,

A softness that makes me tremble,

As if love itself were a flame

That could consume me whole

And leave nothing but ashes

And the memory of your touch.

I hear your voice in the wind,

A murmur that brushes against my skin,

So close, yet so far—

A ghost of you,

A memory clothed in the rustle of leaves,

A promise hanging in the air

Like the scent of rain before the storm.

In the quiet hours of the night,

When the world sleeps and I am awake,

I close my eyes and reach for you

In the dark.

My fingertips graze nothing,

Yet my heart knows,

My heart feels,

That you are there—

In the spaces between breaths,

In the soft murmur of the stars.

I wait,

For you to come back,

For you to see me,

To feel the depth of my yearning

That stretches beyond time,

Beyond distance,

Beyond anything that can keep us apart.

I wait,

In the hollow space between breaths,

Where silence clings to every second,

A weight, a whisper,

Heavy with unspoken words.

And I wait,

Not in sorrow,

But in love,

For love,

For you,

And the day when our hearts no longer ache

In the stillness of longing,

But pulse together,

As one.