Distant Breath

You tell me what it’s like to trace scars,
the stories you learn under trained fingertips.

I wonder what you read of me
in those liminal spaces,
as your breath dusts over closed eyes.

There is a hush between your hands and mine —
but still, something flickers:
a glance too long, 
a pause too full of meaning. 

An admission that I sit somewhere between 
what shouldn’t be, 
and what is already becoming. 

The air between us holds
the echo of undone things —
how your voice softens when you say my name,
how I don’t ask why.

But I know better 
than to catch the butterfly
that didn’t come to stay.

This version of us 
can only exist in maybes —
and I think you know the same. 

So let us soak in the warmth
then fold it into memory’s sleeve —
a tribute to the kind of closeness
that only distance allows to breathe.