Where Love Learns to Stay

I love you in the quiet ways—
the ways that never ask to be seen.
In the pauses between breaths,
in the cup of water left by your bed,
in the hand that reaches back
even when it is afraid of what it might lose.

I love you beyond the language of wanting.
Before desire learned how to beg,
before longing learned how to ache.
I love you the way roots love soil—
without applause, without proof,
without ever knowing if the tree will bloom.

If I leave, it is not from absence of love,
but from the weight of carrying it gently.
If I stay, it is not from habit,
but because my soul recognizes its home
in the sound of your name spoken softly,
as if it were a prayer that answers itself.

There are days when love is not fire.
It is not grand or loud or cinematic.
Some days it is only this:
choosing not to turn away,
choosing to listen when silence is heavy,
choosing to believe that tenderness is brave.

I would love you even if the world forgot us.
Even if history erased our footsteps
and time refused to remember our faces.
I would love you in small, stubborn ways—
by keeping your secrets safe,
by holding your grief like it is holy.

Love is not always arrival.
Sometimes it is endurance.
Sometimes it is the decision
to remain soft in a hard season,
to keep your heart open
when closing it would be easier.

If love has a shape,
it looks like patience kneeling beside hope.
If love has a sound,
it is the steady whisper of “I am here,”
spoken again and again,
until fear finally learns to rest.