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.

For my darling friend, Gigi

There are people who walk into your life and fill the space with noise,
and then there are the ones who bring the softest silences.

With you, it’s never been about constant presence.
It’s the knowing.
The quiet tether stretched across geographic zones,
busyness and the small storms of life.
The sense that even when we don’t speak, you’re still there.
And I am too.

We’ve spoken about everything.
The ache of not being chosen, the courage to walk away.
The metaphors we live by and the patterns we try to unlearn.
Love, death, soul paths, healing, sex, longing and what it means to live well.

No topic too strange.
No feeling too much.
No silence ever mistaken for absence.

You are one of the few who can hold the weight of my thoughts without flinching.
You meet me there in the messy, the indescribable, the mundane.
And when life stretches us thin, we don’t have to explain.
We simply resurface when we can with softness, stories and snacks.

You’re not just a friend.
You’re a place.
A quiet I trust.
A mirror that doesn’t distort.
A reminder that being seen doesn’t have to feel like being exposed.

In a world of conditional closeness, thank you for being my safety in the quiet.

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.

Your hair is longer,
Your face covered in new lines
Unfamiliar to my touch.

I thought for sure
You’d remain a ghost,
Locked in a timeless past.

But there you were,
Smiling in a photo
Beyond what I knew of us.

For a second, my heart smiled.

But then it began to beat loudly,
Struck with shock from seeing
Somebody that I used to know.

Someone who promised me the world,
But spread his love like the tide,
Pulling me in, and pushing me away.

I saw your light in glimpses,
Just as I watched you cast thick shadows
To stave off those that could hurt you.

How unfair it was that that you
Enveloped me in darkness.
I was never the sum of your past.

Nor were you mine.

How much we both must have changed,
Over a period that seems shorter
Than time would otherwise suggest.

You look happy,
Leo is much older.
I hope the reality is just as sweet.

I’m still fascinated by how the Universe
Delivers its messages.
Sometimes I’m not sure what they mean.

Though I will never understand you,
Or know a version of our story
Through different directorial eyes,

I’ve decided it’s okay.

We were always so different,
Yet the dreams we so desperately
Willed to be real were remarkedly similar.

I tried for a final time,
Knowing it may fall on deaf ears.
It did.

I don’t regret a thing though,
Because at the end of the day,
I can say I stayed true to myself.

Can you?

I knew four versions of you.
In Mandarin, that is phonetically similar
To death.

Nate the dreamer,
Nate the fearful avoidant,
Nate the caring lover,
And Nate the cold.

The last one damn near killed me.

So I’ll take the lessons I can
From our time together,
Short but incommensurately impactful.

I hope to learn more about myself,
Scattered across parts of the world
I am soon to glimpse.

I am blocked. That’s all there is to know.

I will never get the chance to create
My diptych-style poem series, or
Hear the second perspective.

Even if I did, would you be honest with me?

I can speculate your whys,
But they linger in a space
That holds no answers.

So perhaps I’ll start searching
In places where my questions
Are met with more than silence.

Perhaps I’ll start seeking love
In hearts that have the capacity
To take a leap of faith.

To try, in spite of whatever we may have gone through previously.

Let us be the sum of our present decisions.

Regardless, I will always remember
The person that first convinced me
That magic could exist.

Who co-wrote and brought to life
The conversations of romantic wonder
That lived inside my imagination.

But what I know to be true is,
There is someone out there for me.
But it was never meant to be you.

“Romanticizing and missing a relationship that previously emotionally destroyed you is a trauma response, not love.” – Anna Aslanian