Of All the Ways

It began with the way your coffee stirred—

not the taste, but the circling,

how it mimicked the galaxies

we used to pretend we remembered.

You said you believed in old lives,

how once we were clouds or horses

or some small thing with eyes too soft for war.

I just liked the idea of beginning again.

You painted stars on your bedroom ceiling,

not to dream under, but to remind yourself

that light doesn’t always ask permission.

And maybe love is like that too—

not a thing that lands gently,

but one that arrives

mid-conversation,

mid-sentence,

mid-mistake.

The moon didn’t look like much that night,

just a peeled rind tossed over velvet—

but it saw us, I swear.

The way you traced your thumb across my collarbone,

like you were decoding me,

like you expected secrets

just under the skin.

But not every flame was meant to last,

even fireflies burn out midair.

We had our season of salt,

of rain that forgot to be gentle.

I said too much in silence;

you stayed quiet

in all the wrong places.

Still, I carry you—

in the small tilt of a stranger’s laugh,

in that single sock you left behind

like some accidental altar.

If grief is love with nowhere to go,

then maybe hope is just

learning how to hold the echo.

Let’s not lie—

you were magic,

not the kind that dazzles,

but the kind that lingers

in the folds of ordinary things.

And somewhere, if the stars are even half as wild

as we once were,

they’re still naming constellations

after the ways

we almost stayed.