The Outlines You Drew

I reached for a coloured pencil
ready to sketch the shadows,
to blend soft blues of memory
with gold where the light once fell.

But you’d already drawn the outlines
bold in their silence,
as if your hands had traced
every story I’d only half-whispered
into the spaces between us.

I didn’t have to start from the beginning.
You remembered
my brother’s name,
the way I speak with my hands,
how my laughter stumbles
when it catches me by surprise.

So I painted within the lines
with a steady, hopeful brush,
letting the colours bloom
where you’d left them blank.
And when your sketch missed a corner,
I let the pigments spill softly beyond,
as if to say, I trust you anyway.

For a moment,
it felt like you’d read the script
before I’d spoken the lines,
like you’d met the girl in the margins
and decided to stay awhile.

And even now,
with the outlines blurred by time,
there is one page I keep
creased at the edges.
Unfinished.
Beautiful.

Where we almost painted something whole.