She’s forgotten the softness
of a hand that never flinches,
a voice that hums in her ear,
gently pulling her out of storm clouds
and into the warmth of sunlight.
He speaks in tender syllables,
as though his words were made
to cradle her heart,
to hold it like a bird that’s too afraid
to trust the open sky.
She’s spent so many nights
learning how to survive the silence,
the cold weight of distance
that feels safer than any closeness,
that speaks of hands that break
instead of heal.
But now, with him,
it’s like she’s stumbling into a dream,
one she didn’t think was hers to have,
soft as the dusk falling over the sea.
His touch is like rain on a parched land,
unhurried, unafraid to soak her to the bone.
And she?
She hesitates.
Like a rose uncertain of the sun,
she tenses at the first kiss of light,
wondering if it’s a trick,
wondering when the warmth will turn
into something too hot to hold.
She’s never learned to breathe
without clenching her chest,
never let herself believe
she deserves a love that doesn’t bruise.
But he…
He waits, patient as a quiet tide,
letting her test the waters,
letting her dip her hands
into the gentleness of him.
Each day, she finds her hands
becoming softer,
her breath deeper,
as though he’s teaching her
how to love without fear,
how to open her arms
to something she’s never known
was hers to keep.
And in that space,
where his tenderness touches her soul,
she begins to trust
that there’s no need to run from the light—
not when it comes so sweetly,
not when it arrives
with nothing to prove.