In this measured gap
between fingertips
and skin,
breath hovers like silk,
trembling softly—
the anticipation
of touch
more exquisite
than the touch itself.

Your presence is felt
in absence,
an ache
that deepens
beneath layers of quiet,
the gentle torment
of withheld desire
like a promise whispered
along the edge
of midnight.

I taste you
in the shadows,
sense you lingering
just beyond my reach,
an echo
of warmth
I yearn to hold
yet savor
most sweetly
when left suspended
on the tip of my tongue.

Distance
becomes our lover,
weaving subtle threads
of longing,
each pulse
of restrained passion
pulling us closer
in silent rhythms
known only
by trembling hearts
and secret sighs.

We circle
in delicate orbit,
near enough
for heat
to bloom,
far enough
for the ache
to deepen—
lovers of the space
between holding
and wanting,
embracing fully
the exquisite torture
of waiting,
where every glance,
every breath,
every thought
is electric
with desire
that lives
at the edge
of possibility.

Your fingertips speak
in soft verses
written on the silence
of my skin,
syllables blossoming
in the space between breaths,
quietly loud
like jasmine opening at midnight.

A whisper grazes
the wrist,
a tender punctuation
on the poem of us—
light as a leaf
that has surrendered
its green,
drifting downward,
slowly finding ground.

Your palm pressed
softly to my back
writes sonnets
in the language
only my spine understands,
each vertebra a stanza,
each gentle movement
a rhythm
of unspoken trust.

Between collarbone and pulse,
your quiet hands
trace invisible lines,
each touch an offering,
a confession
without words—
and yet,
I hear every line
clearly,
the murmured verses
of fingertips
that linger
like poetry,
endlessly rewriting
the poem of how
you choose me
again and again
in silence.

Tell me the price of morning
when the sun spills gold onto leaves
and asks nothing of the branches
but their quiet acceptance.

And what is the value of laughter
rising unexpected like sparrows
from fields where worry planted weeds
but joy bloomed, uninvited.

You could offer coins to rivers,
pay silver to wind, barter sunsets,
yet love remains untouched—
a wildflower opened
only by patience, by warmth,
never by the clink of copper,
never by the careful measure of giving
and getting back.

Love, it is said, moves unseen,
breathes without counting,
bestows its abundance quietly
in the language of trees,
in the whisper of grasses,
in the generous silence
of everything that simply is,
that seeks no exchange,
holds no debt,
wears no price.

Tell me, then, how to hold
what cannot be owned,
only freely offered,
only softly received—

like the air
like the sky
like the invisible blessing
that refuses all names
but one.

They say my papers
Are nothing but air,
My birthright scattered—
Ain’t nobody care.

My skin speaks louder
Than any ID card;
Freedom comes easy—
But justice comes hard.

“You don’t belong here,”
They tell me again.
Born in the soil,
Yet treated like sin.

Homeland security—
Whose homeland, friend?
If my rights crumble,
Tell me, who defends?

When citizenship
Turns to dust on the floor,
Then freedom ain’t free—
Not free anymore.

Collateral damage
In a war I ain’t choose;
Born here to win,
Yet set up to lose.

What good’s a paper
That nobody reads,
When a badge and a cuff
Bring a man to his knees?

My country’s promise—
A ghost in the night.
Tell me again,
Who stands for my rights?

They say my papers
Are nothing but air.
Born into freedom—
But ain’t nobody care.

We have stood
silent before the smoke,
the voice commanding from shadows,
an endless spectacle of
fire and sound
and illusion strung tight as wire.

They told us the wizard
was mighty, implacable,
a storm-maker whose fury
was justice, whose whims were
law carved from thunder.

But we saw, didn’t we?
Through the trembling fabric,
a tired man
in the anxious act
of levers, buttons,
and desperate bluster.
We saw his hollow eyes
darting in fear
at the thought
of being discovered small.

And when the curtain fell—
thin fabric, soft as grief—
we heard our own breathing
for the first time.
We learned the wizard was never
what held us here
but our belief,
the terrible dream we helped spin
with threads of silence.

It was never magic, only power
disguised as magic;
and now we must grieve the loss
of innocence, yes,
but also of illusion.

We must grieve and move
past grief—
no longer reacting,
no longer captive to the storm—
but firm-footed, naming clearly
every lever, every trick,
every trembling insecurity
that kept us kneeling
before smoke.

And though the wizard still shouts,
and though the pyrotechnics remain,
we have seen
through smoke, through mirrors:
we cannot unsee the shaking hands,
cannot unknow
the fear behind the noise,
cannot forget the clarity
that is courage
when illusions fall
and voices rise
steady, awake, alive.

Like a stone in the river
I hold my shape,
smooth and unmoved,
no edges for your fury
to grip,
no crevice for your chaos
to enter.

You surge around me,
wild water
roaring with demands,
searching for weakness,
for reaction,
for the cracks
that might break me
open again.

But I am quiet now,
solid, breathing
beneath your noise—
you who feed on storms
cannot swallow silence.

I have learned stillness
from mountains, patience
from pebbles worn
gently by time.
My power is no longer in motion,
but in steadiness,
a patience deep as bedrock.

Watch closely,
as your currents tire,
as your anger slips past
without catching.
I remain,
grounded in the simple dignity
of stone,
no longer moved
by the floods you bring.

I am here—
gray and calm,
a rock shaped
by survival,
quietly stronger
than your loudest storm.

I thought I knew
how the world arranged itself,
neat stacks of truths,
bound by reason,
filed away in libraries
of certainty.

Then one afternoon
I listened to a story
in a voice
that did not sound like mine,
tasting syllables of worlds
my tongue had never shaped—
and slowly, the walls
I’d leaned against
began to tilt.

How fragile
are the borders
between knowing and being known,
how quickly
we defend the narrow paths
of our own small stories,
forgetting how large
the world stretches,
far beyond
our tidy fences.

Now,
when someone says
“this is truth,”
I look again,
peering gently through other eyes—
and find there
a different horizon,
a new way of seeing
that shifts softly beneath my feet
like sand.

I learn
to walk gently,
carrying questions
like precious stones,
holding carefully
the weight
of another’s lived life,
until every certainty dissolves
into something wider, kinder,
richer
than before.