Wrapped Around Absence.
They were so blue I panicked.
A blue so deep
it did not simply look —
it entered.
They stared.
Gazed.
Held.
They were so blue I panicked.
They did not arrive alone.
Something in me followed.
Now the color spreads like ink —
thick, deliberate —
washing downward
until I am swallowed by the place
ache meets beauty
and does not separate.
They were so blue I panicked.
A stain behind my eyelids.
A bruise that never surfaces.
Now only afterimage.
Longing is cruel in how quietly it lives.
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It does not announce itself.
It rearranges.
It shifts the air beside me in bed.
Presses lightly against my ribs
as if checking
whether they are still braced.
There was a depth I could have folded into —
no climbing,
no rescue —
just fitting.
Knees drawn in.
Breath slowed.
Silence dense enough
to lean against.
Now there is shape without warmth.
A hollow still holding the outline
of something that once rested there.
My hands curl inward at night
without permission —
as if expecting resistance,
as if memory has weight.
They were so blue I panicked.
Now they exist only in distance —
and distance has its own color.
Not black.
Not gray.
Something softer.
Something that stains slowly.
They were so blue
it hurts.
