We Could Have Been Lovers

We Could Have Been Lovers

We stood where something almost started,

close enough to feel it in the quiet,

close enough to imagine names for us,

close enough to never speak them aloud.

You stayed a step away from reaching,

I stayed hidden behind careful words,

and time moved softly through the spaces

we thought would wait forever.

Moments that looked like beginnings,

held too gently to become real,

eyes meeting then turning elsewhere,

as if wanting had rules.

I wondered if you ever felt it,

that pull beneath ordinary days,

the feeling of standing beside someone

and sensing a different life.

Maybe we protected ourselves,

maybe timing closed the door,

maybe neither of us knew

how much silence can cost.

Now I carry no anger toward it,

only the shape of what never happened,

a story without an ending,

a memory without a touch.

Some nights I still think of us,

not with regret, only wonder,

because somewhere in another life

we might have chosen differently.

And perhaps we could have been lovers,

not perfect, not endless, not easy,

just two people who stopped waiting

and finally said what they felt.

#Marie381UkWriter