A Pyre I Cannot Touch, a Silence I Cannot Break, a Love I Cannot Speak

bounded by difference

She does not know.
She cannot know.
And still, I catalog every kindness she performs while exhausted-the door she holds with a shaky wrist, the apology she offers when someone bumps into her, the chair she fixes when it wobbles under someone else. Love is the science of noticing. I have become its understudy.

Sometimes I fear that this is not love but a haunting. Then I remember: hauntings do not care for the haunted. They want presence, not peace. I want her peace. If offered a choice between being known by her and her sleeping eight uninterrupted hours, I would tuck myself back into anonymity and build guard towers around her rest.

I have learned a superstition: if I keep this silent, perhaps the world will go easier on her. If I hide my devotion from the weather, perhaps the rain will choose a softer angle. It is nonsense. It is also the truest thing my animal heart believes. I am willing to be ridiculous if it keeps her from harm.

And yes, it feels terrible: to know I can sometimes make her happy for a moment in school and almost never beyond it. To send her off into the late day with a smile that will fight the evening and lose. To stand at the window of my own restraint, watching her carry a kingdom on tired wrists, and wave instead of intervening. But love, the better kind, knows the perimeter of its usefulness. It is a mercy to remain outside if entering would scatter the fragile order she has made.

She does not know.
She cannot know.
And still-I keep the watch. I keep a weather-eye on the horizon of her. I report my findings to the dark and ask it to be considerate.

Dearest one, if ever you feel a warmth for no reason, a hush in a loud room, a sudden relief like the air remembered its job-know that somewhere a boy decided not to speak. Know that somewhere a page refused to be a letter and offered itself to the infinite instead. Know that someone loved you in such a way that no proof remains, by design.

You are the conflagration I cannot touch.
The beloved pyre I cannot grasp.
The brilliance that kneels to no abyss but still trembles within it.
The sweetness that makes bitterness unbearable.
The trembling hand that makes me tremble in turn.
The puffy-eyed radiance that makes me want to kneel before sorrow and negotiate.

I swore I would never fall into that pit of suffering again.
And then-her.
She, with her sweetness.
She, with her brilliance.
She, with her trembling hands.
She, with her puffy eyes that speak of nights too heavy for any heart to carry.

She does not know that she resurrected me.
She does not know that her presence shattered the vow I made against love.
She does not know that her very existence pulled me back from the grave of my silence.
And she cannot know.

So I leave these words here, suspended between myself, you, and the eternity that swallows us both.

She does not know.
She cannot know.
And still, I watch her-
fragile beneath the weight of a world that dares to crush her.

And I-
I love her, even if only in silence.

If eternity is listening, then let it take this confession and bruise no one with it. Let it hold the shape of her as I know it: sweetness chosen like a discipline; brilliance worn without cruelty; trembling as a language of survival; eyes speaking the truth no rubric can grade. Let it carry to her, in some gentle, deniable way, the knowledge that she is cherished-without credit, without claim, without consequence.

If you, eternity, are merciful, come steal this ache when it grows too heavy for my narrow corridors. But if you are not, teach me to carry it beautifully. Teach me to make from it a quiet that helps the air, a patience that steadies a door, a smile that gives back a borrowed second.

Because I will not leave this love on her desk like a weight. I will leave it here, in you, like a lantern.

She does not know.
She cannot know.
And still, against every clever promise I once made to survive-
I love her.
I love her in silence.
I love her in sorrow.
I love her in a way that terrifies me because it is gentler than all my wrath and hurts more than all my wounds.

And if the years ask me what became of the boy who swore to never kneel again, I will answer with the quietest of victories: he learned to kneel in secret, where no one is burdened by the sight. He learned to keep the flame cupped, not for warmth but for witness. He learned to love a person more than he loved the sound of the word love.

So I keep the watch. I keep the weather. I keep the vow I did not swear but live: to be a shelter she never sees.

She does not know.
She cannot know.
And still, I watch her-
fragile beneath the weight of a world that dares to crush her.

And I-
I love her, even if only in silence.