The absent

There are mercies that arrive disguised as famine.

Not every empty hand has been forgotten.

Some were spared.

The hardest lesson was never leaving.

It was standing close enough to know the warmth without borrowing it.

A shoulder remembered the shape of an almost-embrace.

The air remembered two breaths that refused to become one.

Even silence leaned toward confession,

then thought better of itself.

There are distances measured in inches

that stretch farther than kingdoms.

A heartbeat can mistake hope for permission.

It can hammer against its own ribs

like a bird convinced the dawn is only one more wingbeat away.

But fire has always wanted what wood cannot survive.

So I learned another kind of devotion.

Not the kind that reaches,

but the kind that remains still

until the wanting grows quiet enough

to hear the rain,

the wind through the pines,

the ordinary holiness

of hands left open.

Perhaps love was never the ache of almost touching.

Perhaps it was carrying the unbearable weight

of choosing

not to.