To Be Your Quiet

If I could press my lips
to the place behind your ear—
the one where your breath forgets to hide—
I’d ask for nothing,
and only stay there long enough
for your body to remember mine.

I wouldn’t speak your name aloud,
I'd exhale it
into the slope of your shoulder,
like a wish I once made
and still believe might come true
if I’m careful enough not to wake it.

I want to be your quiet again.
The pause between heartbeats,
the stillness before sleep takes you,
the hand you reach for
when the world is unkind.

I miss you—not with desperation,
but with the calm ache
of someone who loved gently,
and still would,
if one day I were able
to try again.

If you returned,
I would not ask for forever.
Just a single night
with your weight beside me.
Just the depth of silence
that once held everything,
when nothing had to be proven—
only felt.