You call it something softer than it is—
a maybe, a middle, a space without edges.
No sharp definitions, no claims, no names,
just two people orbiting
without ever landing.

At first, it feels like freedom.
No rules, no weight, no risk of breaking—
just late-night honesty
and morning amnesia.
You tell yourself: this is enough.
This is modern.
This is safe.

But safety has a strange cost.

Because you learn their patterns
without ever earning their presence.
You memorize the way they pause before saying your name,
the way they almost choose you—
almost, almost, almost—
like a door that never quite opens.

And you become fluent
in reading what isn’t said.

You celebrate fragments:
a look that lingers too long,
a message that feels like more than it is,
a moment that convinces you
this could become something real
if you just wait—
if you just don’t ask—
if you just don’t need too much.

So you shrink your questions
to fit their silence.
You edit your desires
into something easier to ignore.

And slowly, without noticing,
you start losing.

Not all at once—
that would be kinder.

But in quiet increments:
your clarity,
your time,
your ability to tell the difference
between being chosen
and being convenient.

Because situationships don’t end—
they dissolve.
One day the messages slow,
the calls become history,
and you’re left holding something
that was never fully yours
but somehow took everything.

And the cruelest part is this:
you can’t even call it heartbreak
without feeling foolish.

But it is.

Because you didn’t lose a person—
you lost the possibility
you kept building alone.

And in the long run,
that’s the game:
not love, not connection,
but endurance—
how long you can stay
in something undefined
before you finally admit
you deserved to be chosen
clearly,
fully,
without hesitation.

A dance of shadows, where no vows are cast,
A fragile bond, too fluid to truly last.
We walk a line, where labels fear to tread,
Unspoken futures, words forever unsaid.

It's not a love, nor friendship, clearly defined,
A nebulous space, where hearts are intertwined
With threads of 'maybe,' 'someday,' and 'what if,'
Each tender moment, a precarious cliff.

A losing game, where rules are never clear,
And every player battles silent fear.
Of asking more, of pushing past the haze,
To find an answer in these endless days.

We invest our hopes, our laughter, and our time,
In fleeting glances, a half-hearted chime.
Of something real, a promise in the air,
But built on quicksand, vanishing with care.

The stakes are high, though no one claims the prize,
Just weary hearts, and truth behind the eyes.
For in this limbo, where commitment's shy,
The only winner is the passing by.

So let the cards fall, let the charade cease,
And find in clarity, a truer peace.
For situationships, a game of chance and doubt,
Leave every player, ultimately, out.

I shut the door
and hope you’ll climb through the window,
leaving you suspended
in anxious limbo—
silent by design.

Language as liberation.
Writing as survival.
Poetry as the weapon.

The idioms of my tongue,
the algorithm of my thinking—inseparable.

You offer emotional intimacy
without clarity,
reward my disappearance
with your constant assurance.

You’re exposed.
I’m protected.
And in the end,
thieves don’t come to the rescue.

Words without action.
Affection without intimacy.
Intensity without honesty.

We stand at the edge
of someone else’s limits,
accountants of our joy—
small pleasures
circulating
like counterfeit currency.

I carry my heart like a secret flame,
hidden behind careful glances and small calculations
behind easy laughter that trembles
- always at the edge of an intuitive confession.

You, with your steady eyes,
lean in as though love is simply intuitive —
as though it can be freely spoken without
restraint.
I feel the pull of you like a tide against my cautious shore.
You reach, relentless, trying to close the gap,
but my fear is thunder: don’t step too close,
don’t risk the break.

Then, sudden and inevitable, I feel you slip—

I can feel you slipping—
not because you want to,
but because I don’t dare
catch you with both hands.

If I admit it,
the whole sky may tilt,
and my fragile heart will choose preservation.

So, I smile,
pretend to be safe in the distance,
while love presses at my ribs while slipping through my fingers
aching for the courage to call your name.

Sixteen years today,

and the air still smells of the first rain

that carried us into each other’s arms when you used to drive to New York to see me or pick me up from Union Station when I would come to see you. 

Back then, love was a fever—

an unquestioned truth,

a flag we planted in the middle of a field

we did not know was sinking.

You were acclimated to streets cracking

under the weight of history,

where the light was always earned,

never given.

I came from rooms with air that never sweated,

from windows that opened only to the sound of someone else mowing the lawn.

We spoke the same language of longing,

but our dialects betrayed us - in the end.

My world was soft hands and that certain assurance of abundance.

Yours was calloused palms,

the quiet arithmetic of scarcity.

You thought love could be a refuge—

I thought it could be a rebellion.

We did not know

how heavy love becomes

when it must carry two worlds

that refuse to meet in the middle.

Years blurred into a single aching season of silent discomfort.

I watched you drift toward the ease I understood,

and you stayed rooted in the struggle you could not abandon.

My gaze towards you became a polite winter,

Your storm towards me no longer reached the shore.

On the day we signed our divorce papers,

the pen felt heavier than the rings we once wore,

We smiled like two diplomats

after a failed treaty,

I was certain I had tried— you were still certain that we were meant to be - to live in each other’s house that we almost completely built.

Sixteen years,

and you still  wake to the echo of my laugh

in rooms we no longer share.

We were not wrong to make love.

We were wrong to believe

that love alone could erase the border

between your sky and mine.

We did the thing. We tried.

Before you, I was scattered light,
a nameless constellation—
each star a fragment, drifting,
searching for its sky.

Your friendship came as sudden fire,
then softened into dawn—
your love, a quiet rising light
that drew my pieces into form.

In your eyes, I knew myself—
not as I was, but as I could be.
A steady warmth took hold,
like dust made gold in morning air.

And in your gentle orbit,
I gathered, whole at last—
not forced, but drawn by something true
into a shape that felt like home.

I found myself in how you held me,
in the light you never claimed—
you saw what I could not,
and loved it into name.

In quiet glances, hidden worlds were spun,

A fragile dance we feared had just begun.
Each heart a fortress built on what-ifs high,
While longing breathed between us, soft and shy.

Your eyes—a language I could almost read,
A tender spark, a slowly waking need.
My smile held back the words I longed to say,
Afraid they’d break the spell—or make you stay.

We moved like planets, close but never near,
Bound by the gravity of hope and fear.
The space between us trembled, warm and bright,
A love that lived entirely in the might.

And so it fades—this almost that we knew,
A fleeting world that never quite came true.
Two hearts that felt, yet chose to stand apart,
Still holding all their courage in the heart.