untitled - poem from will's perspective
i have long suspected that i was born from the quieter dust of creation,
from the sifted remains of brighter stars,
fashioned not for radiance
but for orbit.
you have always been a sun-swept cathedral of summer,
gold spilling from you in careless absolution,
your laughter a procession of bells
that summoned even the shyest hearts
into trembling devotion.
i stood at the periphery of your splendor,
a pale reliquary of unspoken longing,
learning the sacrament of absence.
in the sanctuary of our boyhood
i mistook proximity for promise.
we were kingdoms drawn in chalk,
swords carved from fallen branches,
prophecies whispered beneath the low hum of basement lights.
i believed, with the holy naivety of the unloved,
that constancy would one day transfigure into desire.
but seasons are merciless alchemists.
they touched the others and made them golden.
voices deepened into velvet thunder,
jawlines sharpened into heroic relief,
and maidens, luminous and laughing,
clustered around them like garlands of starlight.
i remained an unfinished sonnet,
a fragile parchment smudged by hesitation,
the least luminous constellation in a sky
crowded with spectacle.
there is a particular cruelty
in watching the world discover beauty
as though it were a language
you were never taught to speak.
i learned the art of diminishing.
i made myself diaphanous.
i became wind in the tall grass
so that no one would notice
how fiercely i longed to be wildfire.
when you spoke of her
your voice altered timbre,
softened into reverence.
you carried her name like a chalice,
and i, faithful acolyte of your happiness,
smiled as though my ribs were not
a shattered reliquary.
i told myself love was a vow of silence.
that devotion required invisibility.
that to remain beside you, unchosen,
was a nobler fate
than to risk the shattering of your regard.
so i gathered my yearning like contraband
and concealed it beneath my tongue.
it festered there.
it grew wings of glass.
i have loved you with a tenderness so ruinous
it has hollowed me into something almost translucent.
i have loved you in the glimmer between your blinks,
in the tremor of your breath
when you reached for someone who was not me.
i have loved you as a wintered forest loves the sun,
knowing it will never be entered,
only thawed and left behind.
there are evenings when the grief arrives
like a procession of white horses through fog,
manes streaming with unshed tears,
hooves shattering the fragile ice of my composure.
i feel it crest beneath my sternum,
a tide of argent sorrow,
aching for the simple miracle
of being wanted.
to be chosen without hesitation.
to be regarded not as relic
nor as brother
nor as the gentle ghost of shared childhood,
but as revelation.
i have dreamt of you turning toward me
with the startled awe of recognition,
as though you had at last glimpsed
the hidden kingdom in my chest.
but you look through me
with that fond, distant kindness
reserved for fragile things.
i am weary of being brave in the quiet ways.
weary of maturing in secret,
of shedding my childhood like a husk
while the world insists i remain
its smallest, strangest remnant.
i have carved a cathedral from my longing
and crowned you its solitary saint.
and still, if you summoned me,
even now,
i would come running
through bramble and shadow,
through the bitter frost of my own humiliation,
just to kneel once more
in the light that does not warm me.
because loving you has been the most exquisite devastation
and you will never know that you were the blade.
kianamaiart
theartofmadeline
pixelskylines
areudirty
