There is a kind of loving
where one hand always reaches
a fraction sooner
than the other pulls away.
One holds on
the way people hold umbrellas
in wind that has already won,
knuckles white,
certain that letting go
is the only unforgivable thing.
The other holds on differently.
Not to the one,
exactly.
To the shape they were
before they learned
which parts of themselves
to fold away
to fit beside someone else.
One is afraid
of an empty side of the bed,
a name no longer said
first thing in the morning.
The other is afraid
of a mirror
that no longer
recognises
what it sees.
Neither fear is smaller.
Neither of them
is the villain
in the other’s quiet arithmetic.
Still, they perform the same duet
from different sheet music,
one counting the years still left,
the other counting
the pieces of themselves still left.
Knowing one
was never the difficult part.
Knowing the other
requires staying long enough
in one room
to remember their own name
without it being said for them.
So they stay,
two different kinds of afraid,
holding a single thread
between them,
each certain
it is the other one
who might let go.