Borrowed Color

I’m still learning how to handle

that I am not the one you choose.

It doesn’t arrive all at once.

It seeps in, slow and cold,

through the cracks I tried to seal

with “forever.”

I practice looking at you

like you’re just another face,

like my hands don’t remember

the shape of yours,

like we never built futures

out of late nights and fragile promises.

But you stand too far from ordinary.

There’s something in you,

an unspoken gravity,

that pulls me apart and back together

in the same breath.

An aura I can’t outrun,

no matter how far I pretend to go.

When I’m with you,

I become someone whole.

Edges soften.

The hollow quiet fades

into something almost like peace.

And when I’m alone,

the world returns to its dull truth,

colorless, unfiltered,

forced through my own eyes

instead of the light you gave it.

I know this isn’t meant to last.

I know I had my moment

and let it slip

through fingers that didn’t realize

what they held.

Still,

even knowing it’s temporary,

even knowing how it ends,

I would choose this ache,

this borrowed warmth,

over the emptiness of never again.