today i’m walking down the cracked sidewalk thinking about you
and the way your laugh spilled across the room like sunlight caught in a jar
and how my chest would twist when you said my name
but then the same chest would knot up in quiet panic
because loving you felt like standing in the middle of a storm
watching the sky break open and wondering if i’d survive
i remember the nights we held each other
and i could feel the pulse of your heart under my hand
and i wanted to memorize it forever
but also, every beat felt like a countdown
to the moment you’d leave me standing
with my fingers still warm from your skin
and my lips tasting the echo of words we never said
there was a time when i smiled thinking of you
and at the same time, the smile was bitter
because i knew loving you this hard meant i might fall too far
and heartbreak was already lurking, patient as a cat in the shadows
i wanted you and i feared you
i wanted you and i hated the way i needed you
i was learning the strange geometry of love
how joy and pain could live in the same body
like two rivers colliding and neither stopping
and now sometimes i still catch myself
in the corners of rooms, in the flicker of streetlights
falling for you all over again
and falling apart in the same breath
and i wonder if maybe this is the only way to love
with everything i have
even if it’s also everything i will lose
