Come Closer Anyway

I keep pretending I don’t watch you,

but the truth is always burning through my teeth.

Your shadow brushes mine and suddenly

I forget how to breathe—

and gods, you don’t even know what you do to me.

I tell myself I’m fine without you,

but every night I’m haunted by your name.

I swore I’d learned to live with silence,

then you spoke

and nothing’s been the same.

Come closer anyway—

even if it ruins me.

Even if I break for wanting.

I’m already yours in ways

I never meant for you to see.

I’m trying not to reach for you,

trying not to fall apart.

But you fit into my thoughts so deep

I can’t tell where you end

and I start.

Tell me why your touch feels like a promise

I was never meant to hear.

Why my chest aches like a warning

every time you disappear.

Stay—

just stay a little longer.

I’ll keep pretending I’m not shaking

if you keep pretending

you don’t feel this too.

Because I don’t want forever—

not if you don’t want it with me.

But if you said the word—

just one—

I’d kneel to the wanting

and call it destiny.