being with you felt like breathing right for the first time

“you didn’t do anything special you just looked at me like i mattered like i wasn’t too much or too quiet or too strange for someone to stay and that, somehow, was enough to make my whole body forget what it was like to be afraid of being seen you asked me what i was thinking when i was quiet and you didn’t get upset when i didn’t know how to answer you just waited patient like the silence didn’t scare you like it spoke to you too i remember how you touched me like you weren’t afraid of breaking something that had already been cracked open by the world a thousand times how your voice sounded like my favorite part of the song you know— the part that makes your chest ache for no reason at all you didn’t fix me you didn’t try you just sat beside me on the nights i couldn’t sleep and talked about constellations as if you were one as if loving you meant finally understanding why stars burn and maybe that’s what this was not fireworks not chaos just a slow, steady warmth like a fireplace that never asked me to perform just to stay being with you felt like coming home to someone instead of somewhere we laughed at things no one else would understand you found metaphors in everything i did and i found meaning in everything you were sometimes i’d stare at your hands and wonder how something could hold so gently and still change everything it touched you told me about your past your heartbreaks your fears your doubts and i didn’t flinch— because to love someone is to listen without needing to fix to hold without needing to control and i’ll admit there were days i was afraid days i wanted to run not from you but from how much i needed you because no one ever told me that love could be safe that it didn’t have to hurt to be real but then you’d smile at me or say my name in that way you did like it meant something and suddenly, i believed in softness again we weren’t perfect god, we weren’t even close but we were trying and sometimes trying is holy too because love isn’t always about flowers and grand gestures sometimes it’s about the way you always saved the last bite for me or how you remembered the names of people i only mentioned once or how you held my hand under the table when anxiety made everything feel too loud and maybe that’s what i’ll miss most not the loud parts not the kisses or the “i love yous” but the quiet ways you showed up without needing to be asked the way your love wasn’t something you said but something you were and now— now that it’s over i still remember what it felt like to be chosen without having to convince someone i was worth the risk you taught me that love doesn’t have to be earned that sometimes it just finds you and sits beside you until you’re ready to believe in it again and even if we never find our way back even if we become strangers with memories instead of futures i’ll still be thankful that for a little while this world didn’t feel so lonely because you were in it and you let me in too”