I never cried for you.

You knew me the best,
the ache that always flared
when I slept the wrong way,
your soft hands would find it,
body draped and spooned to mine
as a living thermal blanket.

You'd quietly touch in the dark,
soothing that spinal ghost
without request or a signal
because I could not cry.

You knew the unseen constriction
buried within the plane of my chest,
the ailment I once believed to be
a phantom with no name or arc,
the one that made me pull away
from family and friends daily
but I only drew closer to you,
the helpless moth bathed
in a unique flame's unstable allure.

You'd quietly squeeze my wrist
and convince me that no matter what,
to match my breathing to yours,
calming like a lullaby's seamless rhythm.

I never cried for you.

And all of this time you asked why,
you wanted to know what reached me,
what sent shivers through me
that you saw but could never
get me to voice a shape around.

I knew you the best, too,
the name you'd utter in your sleep,
of who we'd never get to meet,
the one I chose and have kept
closer to me than you ever know.

It was the only love inside of you
that bloomed more than my own,
part of me used to hate you for that,
tell you that you're cold and don't wait
for me to ever come back.

I'd quietly contract into myself
and recede from everyone else,
I'd think of where you once were,
safely nestled within the first
and only home you ever knew,
your entire world made of the dark,
of delicate flesh and vibrations.

I'd think of the aches I never soothed,
this conduit forever linking us,
the monsters I never got to
chase and kill for you,
the still quiet when I would've held
you to my chest and let the rhythm inside,
the one that helped make you,
gently cradle you back to sleep.

I never cried for you.

It would've been perfectly understood,
I would've been consoled in the bed
where it all actually began,
your soft hands would've found mine
and I would've pictured ones
just like them but only smaller,
I don't know if that would've
broken or comforted me,
the smallest details always have.

And all of this time you would've asked why,
you'd want to know what infiltrated
where you never really could,
what webbed the composed
surface you knew with cracks,
I never had the chance to explain.

You were already gone by then,
the spiraling away from me,
beginning in spring's warmest arc
and indisputable by December's frost,
had already long since concluded,
you had already exchanged vows,
created what we couldn't protect together.

It was a small detail in the end,
something found in my home
in the middle of a cold autumn night,
a locket we bought together one day,
a miniature image of us you snapped
and carefully placed inside,
meant to given as a gift years later
to show her we were in love.

That tiny piece of hinged silver,
the little circular photograph inside
of when you knew me at my best,
so weightless now in a palm,
it was the smallest detail in the end
that made me cry for her.

That's when I finally cried for you.