Dust Knew Too

You entered me—the way warmth steals into a wooden house on a winter night—into the walls, the floor, the fibers of cloth, so deep into a sleeping body that cold had hidden itself for years. No one sees that fire, only feels it—trembling stops, muscles soften, and the breath caught in fear within the cage of the chest releases itself slowly—the way a caged bird releases itself, the one that had forgotten what sky was. You are that releasing, you are that remembered sky.

I was a locked room—there were windows, but the curtains drawn, a door, but bolted shut…from inside, by my own hands. Inside were furnishings—a chair, but no one ever sat, a table, but no one ever set down a cup of tea, a bed, but no one ever pulled a blanket over me into sleep. Dust had settled on every surface, spiders had woven their webs in corner after corner, and silence had grown so thick that if you pressed your ear to the wall, you could hear it—the room weeping, quietly, the way people weep alone at night, face buried in the pillow, so that sorrow wouldn't become someone else's burden.

You came to that room—without asking, shoes left at the door, stepping soft, the way the scent of earth comes before rain—no one summons it, but it arrives, because earth needs it, and the sky needs to be emptied. You drew back the curtains, and for the first time in years, light fell across the floor—not harsh, but tender, the way a sister's hand falls on a motherless forehead burning with fever—and in that light the dust particles danced, as if they too had been waiting, as if they too knew—someone would come, someone would one day call this room a home.

The world says—balance in the giving and taking, accounts and ledgers. You kept no ledger. You gave the way earth gives—never asking the seed what tree it will become, whether it will bear fruit, whether it will cast shadow—only making space, only holding it in darkness, only saying without sound—now, grow. I grew in your darkness, in your patience, in your asking for nothing—which is the greatest gift this world can offer.

Now, in the room inside me, every brick bears the print of your fingers. There are words that rise to my throat, halt there, wet my eyes, then sink back into my chest—they cannot become language, because language is small, language is not enough. But they reach you another way—through the pressure of your hand, in sitting silent beside me, in watching the sky together, in matching the rhythm of our breath—where no one speaks anything, and the not-speaking becomes complete, the way night completes itself into dawn—without announcement, without proof, only light arriving to say—here I am, I have come, as I come every day, as I will come forever.

You hold me tight—
the way the ocean explains the grammar of silence.

You gaze at me with intensity—
the way tears hide in the depths of the eyes.

You search for me in upheaval—
the way the destination pauses at the bend in the road.

Ignoring every law of this world—
you gave me all your love.

All the wild growth within me…
you cleared to build a home.

Words I keep deep in my chest,
in the depths of touch, you remain.