I have walked beside you all these years,
never quite holding your hand.
You sang in morning light,
your voice on broken glass—
and I turned away, afraid it would burn.
Since that first trembling,
that first breath,
I have lived with the ache
of knowing what I could never hold.
I tell myself I’m not meant to be known.
I leave before the echo forms,
so no one sees how much I wanted to stay.
When I’m gone—
if someone speaks my name—
tell them I was sent only to give.
That I left not to wound,
but because I never spoke
the language of being received.
And if the gate should open once more—
if I’m ever allowed to return—
perhaps then, and only then,
I might finally be known by you.
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