When longing opens in me, it looks like the man I could never reach or be

When longing opens in me, it looks like the man I could never reach or be,

A shape first born of dreams, of hunger, of imagined fire.

And grief sharpens desire into the dark thing that still lives in me.

I carved him from the tension in the small of my back on a lonely night,

I carved him from fragments of my dreams and heart’s desires.

When longing opens in me, it looks like the man I could never reach or be.

Then I met the face that matched the outline I had carried secretly,

And poured my invented fire into a man made only of quiet and bone.

And grief sharpens desire into the dark thing that still lives in me.

It shattered quickly—he was only a body, not the cathedral I built inwardly,

His icy eyes looked through me and fractured my faith.

When longing opens in me, it looks like the man I could never reach or be.

The longing became obsession, and obsession became a mirror of me,

A projection mistaken for tenderness, a ghost I raised alone.

And grief sharpens desire into the dark thing that still lives in me.

Now I see the truth: he was only a vessel, never the deity—

The fire, the voice, the heart, the soul were mine all along

When longing opens in me, it looks like the man I could never reach or be,

And grief sharpens desire into the dark thing that still lives in me.