It’s a strange kind of ache, this wanting.
Not sharp, not loud—just steady,
like a low tide that never quite comes in.
I can see the kind of love I’m reaching for.
It’s warm in my mind’s hands,
it has weight and depth and the kind of patience
that lets me breathe without performing.
But it’s always at a distance,
like a lantern I can see glowing through the fog—
close enough to imagine its heat,
too far to ever touch.
And in the space between me and that light,
loneliness moves in,
spreading itself through my chest like cold water.
It presses against my ribs,
filling the air I try to breathe.
Some nights, it feels heavier than my own body,
a weight I carry even in sleep.
People say it will find me when I stop looking.
I’ve stopped looking a hundred times.
I’ve gone still. I’ve gone quiet.
And yet—
the space beside me remains an empty kind of full.
So I wait.
Not because I believe it’s coming,
but because I don’t know how to stop wanting it.
