There should be a word
for the kind of love that lingers
beneath the surface of something steady.
Not louder than friendship,
but just as present.
Unspoken, not because it’s fragile,
but because it’s sacred.
Every time we see each other,
it returns like muscle memory.
That hush between us.
The pull.
We don’t name it when it would be unkind to.
But it’s there.
It’s always there.
If he ever turned to me and said
it’s always been you,
I would not hesitate.
My whole self would soften into it.
I wouldn’t need to be asked twice.
But he doesn’t.
He chooses other lives.
Other women.
And each time,
I remind myself to understand.
To not ask why.
To not wonder if it’s something in me
that makes him look away.
Still, I would never want to take from him.
Never want to interrupt the good he’s tried to build.
Because the love I carry
was never born from wanting to possess.
Only ever from wanting him to be well.
Even if it’s without me.
He knows how I feel.
Always has.
And I know how he feels.
Even when he hides it behind timing
or circumstance
or someone else’s name.
Maybe one day
when all the other lives we built
have settled into memory,
we’ll find ourselves side by side again.
Maybe then,
on a quiet evening on a porch,
with stories between us,
he’ll look at me like that.
And if he does,
I will not look away.
I’ll let him see every part of me.
Even if it’s only for a breath.
Even if that breath
has to be enough.
Because my love
has never wavered.
It never will.
Insights of A. Rose 