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”
TenPastTen 
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