you said it was a joke,
about how you wanted to kiss me
you looked me
straight in my eyes
and told me,
"i could kiss you right now"
then pulled away after a moment.
your touch lingered,
i could still feel your hands there,
on my cheeks,
holding them.
i could still feel
your body heat --
you had gotten too close
close enough for me to still feel it
because even though you left
you were still there.

you said it was a joke,
but the look in your eyes
it was desperate,
like you needed a push
to kiss me
then
and there

"we are not a phase"
they had told us
to whisper our pronouns
hide our true colours painted on flags
like shame folds easier
than truth.

they say,
"love has rules"
but only when it looks
a certain way,
and we never looked
they way they had wanted,
the way they expected us to be.

but we exist
in full colour --
in quiet,
soft,
gentle first kisses,
in second glances that were held
a little too long by most,
in the hands that tremble
but still reach.

we are not a debate.
we are certainly not a phase.
we are stories
that are still being written,
in chalk
on our skin,
in protest,
and in poems.

and when they try to erase us,
who we are,
we come back.
louder.
softer.
screaming for rights.
still here.

you kissed me once --
you were drunk,
and it was once,
just once --
and then laughed like it was nothing
but your hand lingered
just half a second too long.
half a second.

you held my secrets
like folded contracts,
terms tucked
into your quiet,
and sneaky glances
like maybe
you were hoping,
and praying that i wouldn't read them.
or try to.

i should've known.
love was never in bold.
it was small,
curved quietly into the margin
of every almost we had pretended
didn't matter to us,
to me,
to anyone,
at all.

now you hold her hand
in public.
and i hold
all the things
you never said --
only highlighted,
neon yellow,
and in hindsight.

i should've read the terms,
the conditions,
the fine print.
should've known.

you call me petal,
suddenly im blushing
like a rose in the morning
before the sun knows to look away

your fingers brush against mine
and something blooms --
not loudly,
but like orchids
deciding its time.

you always smell like wild lavender
and stolen hours,
like the kind of spring
you never see coming
until it's already
wrapped around your ribs.

i used to hate snowdrops.
they're too open, too soft.
now i plant them into poems
because they remind me of you --
brave
enough
to bloom anyway.

this thing between us
isn't fireworks.
it's passion,
it's roots,
and patience
it feels like sunlight shared on a park bench
where your head finds my shoulder
and stays.

happiness hums in the quiet light,
laughs that bloom without a why,
the warmth is caught
in passing glances-
bare tlfeet dancing through the sky
all these feelings,
tangled and small,
easily labelled as one;
happy.

grief doesn't knock-
it slips in
wearing her perfume,
that strong vanilla scent
it sits beside me in silence,
and stays longer than memory.

her absence is a hum
beneath the streetlight.
it slips through my curtains -
silver,
never soft enough
to hush my thoughts.
give me a break.

her name is a wind,
caught behind my ribs,
blowing through
the rooms i built for her
but never locked.

every breath feels borrowed,
taken -
like she left it behind
by accident.
like her smile,
still living in the quiet
between my heartbeats.

the bed forgets
how to hold me right,
how to put me to sleep.
some nights,
loneliness is a second pillow.
other nights,
it’s her voice -
curled up
where my dreams should be.
but they aren’t.