The Way You Stay

Love didn’t arrive like thunder.

It came like evening light—

slow, patient,

learning the shape of my walls.

You stayed.

In the pauses of my sentences.

In the rooms I never cleaned

because I was ashamed of what lived there.

I loved you

not in grand gestures

but in the way I remembered

how you took your tea,

how silence frightened you,

how your smile leaned left

when you were trying not to cry.

You taught me

that love is not possession—

it is presence.

A hand resting near mine

without needing to hold.

If the world were to forget us,

I would still know you

by the way my heart

softens when I say your name

to no one at all.