space between

i loved the spaces between us the quiet moments when words weren’t needed and nothing felt urgent i loved the way your hand lingered just short of mine like it was afraid of making me yours or afraid of being too late i loved how the silence no longer felt heavy with each breath i loved the pauses in conversation where your eyes said everything your mouth wouldn’t i loved the distance that made me ache without resentment without blame i loved the way we could exist side by side the way like constellations drawn across the same sky never touching, but complete in their alignment or stars that burn quietly in different corners of the universe and somehow still light the same night i loved the echoes of laughter that didn’t need attention just knowing it was there was enough i loved how the spaces kept me awake at night thinking of you but not consumed by you i loved the emptiness because it felt alive it held possibility and fear and something soft that i couldn’t name maybe that was love not in the grand gestures or the spoken vows but in the quiet gaps where hearts brushed without pressure without demand where the spaces between us were big enough to hold everything we couldn’t say and i loved every one of them even when you left even when they became all that remained.