Pause

You were not falling in love with me,
not with my voice in the evening,
not with the way I stand beside you,
not even with my heart laid open.

You were falling in love
with who you became
when my words found your heart
and stayed there, gentle, unguarded,
as if they had always known the way.

They touched your soul
without asking permission,
and something in you softened,
the part that forgot
how deeply it could feel.

When you were with me,
you spoke more honestly,
laughed more freely,
as if you knew even then
it wouldn’t last forever,

Loved more bravely,
and believed, if only for a while,
that tenderness
could survive in this world.

I was not the miracle.
I was the place
where your heart remembered itself.

And when we went quiet,
it was not an ending,
only a pause
where possibilities rested,
waiting patiently,
knowing that what awakened us
cannot be undone,
and never truly leaves.