How It Began

How it began,
I still can’t say.
Just a quiet September morning,
light thinning early,
your laughter catching
like it had always known my name.

We met in the fall,
when everything was learning how to let go.
But you—
you felt like something beginning.

Leaves loosened from branches.
I loosened from myself.
Fall turned to winter,
and I didn’t notice the cold
because you were there.

Who would have thought
two people
could become
someone’s always.

I never believed
someone like you
would see through me,
past the careful words,
past the practiced calm,
and stay.

Words

Words were what I had.
I have always lived inside them.

They were safer than touch,
easier than truth.
I could shape them,
smooth their edges,

So I gave them to you.

Small ones at first.
Careful ones.
Testing-the-water words.

You listened
like they mattered.
Like I mattered.
And slowly
the distance closed.

My sentences grew honest.
My voice forgot how to hide.
I told you things
I’d only ever whispered to the dark.

Words took your heart,
you said.

But what you didn’t see
was how you took mine—
not with words,
but with presence.

With the way your silence
felt like shelter.
With the way your hand
fit against mine
as if it had been waiting there
all along.

Somewhere between
late-night confessions
and morning light through the curtains,
we stopped falling
and started choosing.

And that’s deeper than a feeling.

Now when I say your name,
it isn’t just a sound.

It’s a history.
A season.
A place my heart returns to

Words,
let them be honest.
Let them be steady.
Let them be enough to say
that loving you
didn’t just happen—

It rooted.
It endured the winter.
The spring
The summer
And back to the fall
Where it began.

By: Daniel