Hope Fleeting

Saturday falls like a slow bruise,

and the rain writes your name

against my window;

soft, uncertain, almost afraid

to stay.

There is no crushing loneliness tonight,

only that thin, trembling ache

that lives in the quiet places

you once touched.

A hollow that does not hurt,

but remembers.

I tell myself it’s just a handful

of nights,

a small stretch of sky

between now and whatever

you decide to be.

If you come,

the air will answer before you do:

in the way silence breaks,

in the way a heartbeat stumbles

when recognition walks back

into the room.

And if you don’t…

well, absences speak fluently.

Some doors close

without ever making a sound.

I pretend to busy my hands

with other faces, other voices,

other borrowed lights;

but hope is a stubborn ember,

and it glows even when

you don’t deserve the fire.

I want one more moment,

one more breath pressed

against the mouth of what we were.

Not to dream,

just to know

whether the story is sleeping

or dead.

The truth hangs heavy

as wet branches:

whether you cross this distance

or leave it untraveled,

I will know.

Because longing is a quiet oracle,

and it whispers the same prophecy

over and over:

if you come, I will feel it.

If you don’t,