i fade into how i feel
and i feel everything
while the air carries
a type of softness
i can only dream about
the kind that moves through me
before i know where it came from
and leaves me wondering
why some nights
feel more familiar than others
my hands glide in directions
i can only feel in memory
in longing
in a different type of yearning
one that does not ask
but somehow waits
one that sits beneath the skin
and moves when i move
like it has always known
where i would go
and i feel like
i have been here before
when i know i have not
like some places recognize us
before we recognize them
like some people arrive
with a feeling already attached
and we spend the rest of our time
trying to remember
where we first felt it
i feel that i could be
everywhere at once
and everywhere i am
just a little gone
a little behind myself
a little somewhere else
where the lights were softer
where your hand was closer
where time had not yet learned
how to move between us
and i blend into these directions
into clocks
into sounds against the wall
into little echoes
i can only remember
when everything becomes quiet
when i live inside the details
of how i have been
and how i wanted to be
when you were somewhere
inside the thought of it
i miss the touch
the tips of your hands
how they moved beside mine
how something so small
could carry so much
how i could feel your warmth
without ever knowing
how long i was allowed
to keep it
and i feel your memory
pulling and drifting
soft in one moment
sharp in the next
like wind moving curtains
through an open window
where i stand too long
waiting for something
i know has already passed
and i caress this
in a type of madness
the quiet kind
the kind that makes memory
feel almost tender
where i can hold you
without touching you
where i can hear you
without a sound
where every little thing
becomes something
because i needed it to
i think of the way
your body existed near mine
the space between us
how it felt smaller
than everything surrounding it
the little movements
the way a shoulder turns
the way eyes look away
and somehow find their way back
the way a moment can become
more than the time it was given
and i long for this
not because i believe
it should return
but because i remember
how alive i felt inside it
how the world became softer
around the edges
how even silence
felt like something
we were sharing
sometimes i wonder
if you remember it too
if a sound catches you
in the middle of a room
if a certain kind of night
makes you pause
if the wind touches your skin
and for half a second
you feel somewhere else
maybe that is foolish
but i like the thought
that memory can move
between two people
without either one
asking it to
that somewhere
beneath everything we became
there is still a little piece
of what we were
waiting quietly
without needing a name
i hold that carefully
not like something
i need to keep
but like something
i was lucky enough
to feel
because yearning is strange
it does not always want
what it misses
sometimes it only wants
to stand beside the memory
a little longer
to feel the warmth
before it becomes air
and i think that is where
i leave you
not gone
not mine
not waiting
just somewhere
inside the softness
of everything
i still know how to feel