If the map unfolds and takes me
farther than your shadow reaches,
know it was never distance
that made me turn my face from you.
I still carry mornings
of you waiting outside my street
that place you’d never known
until I made it ours.
The quiet ritual of arrival,
your laugh slipping in like sunlight
before I even sat down.
I have lived inside the hush
of your camera lens,
the way you freeze me
in pictures I’d never take of myself.
And the car rides.
Our voices breaking into songs,
silly anthems turned to hymns.
I never want to forget.
I do not want the air
that forgets our bagels two states away,
the golden crisp of small comforts,
the sweet-and-bitter of endings we hardly finish,
or the way you once said I love you
and I ruined the moment with
That’s all? in my worst, jokingly-worst,
need-more-affirmations, doubtful voice.
How you stuttered then,
trying to gather the right words to affirm.
Even the smallest pieces of us
feel larger than the life I thought I’d have.
You once told me,
You never believed partners like this existed.
that kind of warmth belonged only to others.
But we happened.
We are proof that impossible things
can unfold in ordinary hands.
If the road divides us,
I will still carry your patience
like a lantern against the dark.
I will hum our car songs
when silence grows too sharp,
write you into margins
where homesickness hides,
and hold the memory of your laugh
like a house key I never lose.
It is not fair to you,
this ache before it happens,
but I promise this.
Near or far, I will choose you
instead of the hollow of absence.
And if distance demands us, let it learn.
We bend, we stretch, but we do not break.
Somewhere, I’ll still hear our ridiculous gangster talk,
half-teasing, half-keeping us alive.
farther than your shadow reaches,
know it was never distance
that made me turn my face from you.
I still carry mornings
of you waiting outside my street
that place you’d never known
until I made it ours.
The quiet ritual of arrival,
your laugh slipping in like sunlight
before I even sat down.
I have lived inside the hush
of your camera lens,
the way you freeze me
in pictures I’d never take of myself.
And the car rides.
Our voices breaking into songs,
silly anthems turned to hymns.
I never want to forget.
I do not want the air
that forgets our bagels two states away,
the golden crisp of small comforts,
the sweet-and-bitter of endings we hardly finish,
or the way you once said I love you
and I ruined the moment with
That’s all? in my worst, jokingly-worst,
need-more-affirmations, doubtful voice.
How you stuttered then,
trying to gather the right words to affirm.
Even the smallest pieces of us
feel larger than the life I thought I’d have.
You once told me,
You never believed partners like this existed.
that kind of warmth belonged only to others.
But we happened.
We are proof that impossible things
can unfold in ordinary hands.
If the road divides us,
I will still carry your patience
like a lantern against the dark.
I will hum our car songs
when silence grows too sharp,
write you into margins
where homesickness hides,
and hold the memory of your laugh
like a house key I never lose.
It is not fair to you,
this ache before it happens,
but I promise this.
Near or far, I will choose you
instead of the hollow of absence.
And if distance demands us, let it learn.
We bend, we stretch, but we do not break.
Somewhere, I’ll still hear our ridiculous gangster talk,
half-teasing, half-keeping us alive.