“A Love Without Witness”

I love you in secret,
slowly,
so we may survive
the complexity of our story:
learning how to move through
a love never meant for daylight,
a love that must not speak its name in public.

I love you with caution,
as if loving you were a crime,
a hidden sin,
as if this tenderness, once exposed,
could undo our very existence.
It is a love shaped by anxiety,
formed in the quiet spaces that made us.

I love you in silence,
to protect the depth of what we share.
I love you where my heart speaks
in a language only you understand,
where only your soul
can hear its trembling sound.

Perhaps our love is real only there:
in disguise,
in distance,
in secrecy—
far from the pain it costs us,
where our souls can finally rest
in the simple thought of us.
Where the heart is allowed to feel,
but not act,
not reveal.
This is the mercy of loving you.

I love you from a distance,
because distance is preservation.
It aches us both,
yet it is how I keep you safe:
this sunlight we were never meant to touch.

You were my sunlight on bare skin.
I was the warmth that made you glow.
It is a love without witness,
distance transformed
into mutual devotion.