When You Call Me Beautiful

You say my name like it means something,

Soft in the half-light, slow and kind.

I try to smile, but I can’t hold it,

The weight of me slips out of time.

You trace the pieces I can’t carry,

Call them art, call them divine—

But if you saw the way I see me,

You’d stop trying to find the light.

When you call me beautiful,

I forget how to breathe.

Your love feels like forgiveness,

For something I can’t leave.

You see gold in the ashes,

Where I only see the fall.

I wish I could be the man you love,

When you call me beautiful.

The mirror never learned your language,

It only speaks in quiet wars.

You kiss the ghosts beneath my silence,

Like they’re worth fighting for.

I try to live inside your vision,

But the world keeps pulling me through—

All the ways they look, the words they say,

I wish I didn’t feel them too.

When you call me beautiful,

I forget how to breathe.

Your love feels like forgiveness,

For something I can’t leave.

You see gold in the ashes,

Where I only see the fall.

I wish I could be the man you love,

When you call me beautiful.

Maybe someday I’ll see it too—

The warmth you paint beneath the bruises.

But tonight I just stay still,

And let your voice undo the ruins.

When you call me beautiful,

It sounds too good to be true.

But I keep your words like fragile things,

Till I learn to see me too.

You see gold in the ashes,

Where I only see the fall.

I wish I could be the man you love,

When you call me beautiful.

When you call me beautiful…

I almost believe it.