Crucible
If you come my way,
you do not choose me,
you choose you,
the you that has been calling
from deep inside the dust,
the you that has waited
like a slow dawn
unfurling behind the fog.
A man fights many things in his life,
but the river inside him is not one to break
with fists.
You watch it.
You learn the shape of its current.
You drink your coffee and breathe.
You are the serenity
that travelers mistake
for chance,
the whisper a forest keeps
in the folds of its leaves.
There is a constellation
tucked into your gaze,
a patient flame,
not burning, but glowing,
like a truth that refuses
to shout.
I have loved
with the gravity of planets
clung to bodies
as if they were
lifeboats sailing toward
the infinite hush
Now the mirror shows
a stranger I recognize.
The same eyes,
but deeper.
The same hands,
but steadier.
And still, in rare quiet evenings,
I feel you like fading perfume,
a tender ache under my ribs,
a gift I could not keep,
a love unheld, yet once real.
Today I thank the simple things:
the spoon that rests,
the milk that bends into silk,
the sun leaning gently
through the window.