When Shadows

I found you standing where the silence broke—

not loud,

just enough for me to breathe again.

Your eyes, holding something ancient,

like lullabies passed through generations

and left on the lips of morning.

We didn’t speak of healing,

but our fingers knew how to listen.

You laughed like you’d built homes from ruin,

and kissed like the world might stop,

just to watch.

There were days we walked separate hours,

still tethered

by the memory of a shoulder,

warmth borrowed from yesterdays,

never owed,

always returned.

Then came the moment—

when the light didn’t beg to be noticed,

it simply arrived.

Not golden,

but the quiet kind that makes dust sparkle,

that holds the room

without raising its voice.

You said nothing.

You didn’t need to.

Your breath was enough proof—

that we’d both survived

our own undoings.

And I,

once a collector of endings,

now gather beginnings

like petals

pressed into the corners of your smile.