sunlight spills
across her face,
the warm glow seeping
through the curtains
quietly,
while she sleeps --
like the morning
is in love with her too.

her lashes catch
the warm sun,
like she's dreaming
in golden.
i stay still,
quiet,
gentle --
not because i might wake her,
but because i don't want
to break
the moment.

What are we,
You love me, yet you’re with her.
You ignore her, come see me,
Its like a big secret,
I don't want it to be,
I want it to be us.
You say she needs you, i need you,
You say you help her, you help me survive.
I love you, do you really love me?
When people ask, its always ‘were not together yet’
When is yet, can yet be now?
I need you.
You say im yours, but whos is she?
I dont wanna be the other woman,
I wanna be your woman.

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.

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.

talk to me.
stop staring from afar
i don't want stolen glances-
i want us.
i want your love.
i want your hand in mine.

i don't need to see you
across the room
laughing with another man
why couldn't it be me?
the girl you stare at
watch from afar-
making sure she's okay
quietly,
making sure she's not
seeing anyone else
you should talk to me
talk to me
instead of watching
instead of wondering
making sure
im not taken
im here
i just want
to be spoken to
by you.

i don't miss her per se
not really-
not the way she stirred her coffee counter-clockwise
or how she spoke my name
ever so softly
like a secret
no one else could hold

i miss the feeling
of her-
that imagined life
woven in between shared glances
and almosts
the home i built
in her soft
gummy smile
before i saw the cracks

i miss what never even happened
the parallel version of us
the ones who stayed.
is that still missing her?
or just missing
being wanted
by someone
who never really could?

my ache has no address
no home
yet it answers
to her name
every time
like it's all i know
like she's all i know

the moon is a whisper
on my bedroom wall,
she's ten times louder in my head

her name is a tide
it pulls,
it tugs,
it etches itself
on the inside of my eyelids.

every blink is a memory i didn't ask for
her laugh-
uninvited
but welcome
always

the bed is too big
for one body and this much longing
some nights
sleep forgets me
other nights
she replaces it

she laughs into her girlfriend's shoulder
but watches me like a secret
like she's holding her breath-
a sigh of relief
in the shape of something new
and i see it-
the way her smile trembles
when our eyes catch,
like she's just met a truth
she wasn't looking for,
as she turns back to her girlfriend
the girl
who isn't me.

we never speak
just glance
across italian class
across the corridor
across everything we don't say

she sits beside.. him
laughing loudly as he kisses her cheek
but her eyes flick
they always do
to me.
the girl sitting alone
head in a book

we trade seconds
like stolen notes
neither is brave enough
to unfold
to admit
and maybe in some other version of today
those glances would have been hands