Untethered

I walk the edge of comfort and despair,
grateful for your voice that still finds mine,
a fragile thread that says you still care—
yet never enough to cross the line.

Your laughter warms me, a fleeting sun,
but I wonder what I am beneath your gaze.
A secret kept, a door half-shut, undone,
a ghost you visit in your quiet days.

You hide me from the circles where you shine,
I am a shadow you summon at will.
To you, perhaps, I’m nothing more than time,
a casual face your heart keeps still.

Yet I serve—I bend, I please, I stay,
hoping one kind word might stitch me whole.
I know we will not find that road again,
but I still dream of shelter in your soul.

I replay each moment when you are kind,
searching for meaning you never intend.
I’m tangled in the questions of your mind,
uncertain if I’m comfort—or just a stand-in friend.

I ache at how I vanish when the night is done,
when daylight takes you back where I can’t reach.
I live on crumbs, a glance, a fleeting run,
your silence cuts more deeply than your speech.

If love won’t bloom, then let me find release,
to free my chest from this secret ache.
For silence is a hunger without peace,
a wound that deepens with each breath I take.

So let the future draw its careful line,
either with you, or far from where you are.
I pray this breaking heart can yet be kind,
and heal itself beneath another star.