seré meJOr pAra ti.
I met you in the neon glow
of a drunken karaoke night
I watched you from the hightop table
beneath the colored lights
you sang off key and smiled at me
like you already knew
and from across the crowded room
I felt you wanted to
you came to me across the room
and asked me for a dance
you said my blue eyes stopped you cold
the moment that I glanced
one night I made a reckless joke
just being dumb that night
I laughed instead of thinking first
and nothing came out right
you looked at me uneasily
but stayed there through the night
though something QUIet shifted theN
behind your tired eyes
the next day you were distant
by evening you were gone
and every room inside my house
felt strangely turned all wrong
a month went by in silence
no messages came through
I replayed every word I said
and every look from you
then one night you came back in
like nothing had been planned
and stood there in my doorway
with your jacket in your hands
you moved in before I understood
just what we even were
one minute we were laughing drunk
the next you lived here, sure
and I was scared to ask too much
or question what we made
like saying “what are we” out loud
could make the whole thing break
I know my heart is heavy
too tangled up in fear
that every time I tried to speak
it only came out tears
and when the room grew crowded
with questions, stress and noise
I answered you with tired sighs
instead of honest words
I knew that I should say things
explain what hurt inside
but feelings lived like tangled thread
my mouth could never tie
you stayed inside my lonely place
the one I build alone
and having someone in my home
felt foreign to my bones
I worried if you left me
you’d have nowhere safe to sleep
so I swallowed all my panic down
and hid it way too deep
I didnt know articulation
how to neatly say
“im overwhelmed, im scared right now,
please dont walk away”
I felt trapped inside a moment
with no good way to move
every answer felt destructive
every silence felt like doom
id sit there frozen panicked
unsure what would be right
too overwhelmed to speak at all
just frozen in my fright
I knew your mind was crowded too
with battles I couldn’t see
and maybe all that weight you held
changed how you reached for me
I tried to understand the ways
your distance came from pain
though knowing why you pulled away
didnt make it hurt less strange
and somewhere in the distance
you slowly pulled away
your hands no longer reached for mine
the way they did those days
you stopped kissing me goodbye
stopped touching me at all
and I grew used to silence
where your affection used to fall
it wasn’t that I hated me
or thought that I was plain
I know that I am beautiful
I know my worth remains
the want to be desired is human
to lose it leaves a bruise
and every lack of tenderness
made me afraid of losing you
maybe I was too much
too loud when I would ache
too quiet when the moment came
for honesty to wake
I made those awkward little jokes
that never seemed to land
trying to turn pain harmless
with humor poorly planned
or maybe you were using me
my warmth, my hands, my dime
keeping me beside you
till leaving felt just fine
you packed your bags so quickly
like this was long rehearsed
while I stood there in the doorway
trying not to burst
“I dont want you to go” I cried
my body started to bend
you looked at me with tired eyes
and said “I want this to end”
so now your side is empty
your shadow left the room
and silence sits beside me
like perfume after you
but no one makes me laugh like you
not even accidentally
and finding someone rare like that
doesn’t happen very easily
I miss the way you’d look at me
the stupid things wed say
and part of me still wonders
if we could try someday
ill learn to speak my feelings
not hide behind my fear
ill say the things I swallow now
instead of drowning here
and maybe ill still stumble
still crack and come apart
but ill work on how I hold my words
and hold them from my heart
even if they leave in fragments
even if they come out shy
ill finally learn to say them
even if its in rhyme
and if you need your distance
or decide im not the one
ill try to understand it
even if I come undone
I just dont want to lose you
like strangers lose a name
because knowing you changed something
and I won’t quite be the same
so if someday you miss me
or wonder how ive been
I hope life lets us find our way
back to laughter again
