We don’t exist in daylight.
Not in grocery store lines or crowded streets.
Not in passing nods or casual invitations.
We are not allowed there.

You belong to a life
Of shared calendars and dinner tables.
And I—I answer to a life that looks stable,
But feels like suffocation.
We wear roles like armor,
Speak love in languages not meant for each other.

But here—
In this office, where the blinds stay drawn
And time bends around us—
We become real.
Your voice softens but commands when it’s only for me.
My hands tremble for all the right reasons.
No lies. Just the ache
Of a truth that doesn’t fit
Anywhere but here.

We text in the mornings.
Routines wrapped in longing.
Tiny rituals that tether us
While pretending we’re anchored elsewhere.

You come and go with caution.
Eyes alert. Steps measured.
Even the hallway
Feels like a confession
Waiting to be overheard.

And still—
I think about the day we’ll be in the same room,
Out there, among others.
How I’ll smile like you’re anyone,
While every cell in me begs to turn toward you.
My chest will tighten with every glance we don’t share.
I’ll hold my body like a secret,
Speak only in safe tones.
Not because I don’t want to reach for you—
But because guarding us
Is how I protect you.
How I protect me.
How I protect the us
That exists nowhere else.

We don’t hold hands in public.
We don’t risk the world noticing the gravity between us.
Even eye contact could unravel too much.
So we speak in code,
Live in the margins,
Never daring to spill into the daylight.

You leave first.
I stay behind in the stillness,
Wearing your absence like perfume.
We only exist
Between four walls.
But God, how we exist.

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