TenPastTen

You touched me first

not with your hands

but with the quiet way you stayed.

I had spent years learning

how to brace myself—

shoulders tight against disappointment,

heart folded small

like a letter never meant to be read.

But you unfolded it.

You looked at me

as if the fractures were not damage

but the map of where I had survived.

You traced the fault lines

with patience,

with a tenderness that did not ask me

to be less breakable.

In your presence

I did not feel inspected.

I felt known.

The way you rested your head

against my chest

made the storm inside me

lower its voice.

Your breath—warm, steady—

moved through the dark rooms of me

like candlelight.

You loved me

not as a finished thing

but as a man still becoming.

You saw the places

where I doubted myself

and you stood there quietly

like a door left open.

And when I faltered,

when the old shadows returned

and I feared you would see

the worst of me—

you only pulled me closer

and whispered

as if it were the simplest truth in the world,

“it’s okay, my love”