A Name Too Heavy for Daylight

Once, I was your song—
the melody that carried your name
through every open window,
your voice echoing in the wide, forgiving air.
Every note of me alive on your tongue,
every word loud enough
to shake the quiet from the world.
You sang me without shame,
bright and unrestrained,
as if love had no shadow.

Once, I was your art—
you, the painter;
I, the portrait you couldn’t wait to display.
The canvas you let the light touch,
the story you told even when no one asked.
Your hands made beauty of me,
and I believed that meant forever.
The world knew my name
because it lived inside yours.

But now—
I am the hush between curtains,
the aftertaste of confession.
I am only what happens
after doors close:
a breath half-swallowed,
a name too heavy for daylight,
the warmth you seek when the world turns its head.
Your body says everything
your mouth no longer dares to speak.
I am what your lips call only in the dark,
a name too dangerous for dawn.

Now we love in fragments—
half-words, half-looks,
our hearts like hands pressed through glass.
But I miss the noise of us—
the reckless, roof-shouted kind of love
that didn’t care who listened.
I ache for the version of us
that still believed love was loud,
that it could live outside the dark.
Now, even your breath against my neck
feels like an apology
for wanting me at all.

You hold me close
as if silence could sanctify what remains.
We speak in whispers now,
as though our love were a sin
we wrote together and promised never to read aloud again.
You touch me
like something sacred yet unblessed,
as if we must hide from the gods
that once applauded our fire.

And I know—
I know it is my doing.
I was the one who asked
for gentleness,
for silence where shouting once was,
thinking the world had taken enough of us.
I asked for something less than the storm we were.
I dimmed the light,
thinking love would last longer in the dark.
But I did not see
how silence becomes erasure.

Once, I was your chorus.
Now, I am the pause
between the notes you don’t sing anymore,
the secret you keep from the eyes of the world.