Don’t Say It

I won’t say I love you,

but I feel it

in the quiet between us

when our gazes touch

Soft as a breath,

silent as retreat

Lingering talks on the patio

around the table I thrifted

Your dark green American Spirits

and a half pint of Jameson

sweating harder

than the words we don’t say

In the silence under the stars

my mind wanders to

the cage I called marriage

I can’t shed this second skin of regret

though they called me serpent

for slipping out of ceremony

I avoid our home

You sit in the dark behind blinds half-drawn,

moonlight stroking your face

the way you wish I would

Loneliness spoiling like milk,

but never curdling into bitterness

I tell myself

I don’t want commitment

So I chase strangers,

their touch fumbling at

the lock behind my ribs

haphazardly welded shut

It never works

I wake up in borrowed sheets

missing the weight

of your arms,

pretending not to crave

the warmth I swore off

I want

to want you

without needing you

I won’t gorge on hope

just to choke

on its sugared husks

But amidst all the anxiety

the overthinking

the distance

you stay sturdy

The cliff I shatter against

when the sea spits me out

But you never move,

never will

You promised,

that night on the patio

Your smoke twining through my hair

when your hands were too afraid

Don’t say you love me,

because love

named aloud

is the ghost I can’t shake

since I fled from

my faux altar of eternity

Love me without words

Care without claiming

I dress us up casually,

but stitched into our lining

are the threads

that make you my lifeline