I am very good at not reaching.
It is how I keep things from breaking.

He is the ache’s anchor.
Him.
All of him.
Even when I pretend otherwise.

I have him when time loosens.
In the margins.
In the quiet.
Where shadows do not ask questions.

I take what is offered
and do not ask for more.
I do not pull at what does not belong to me.

He belongs to a life that wakes in sunlight.
A life that does not look like mine.
A life I will never touch.

Out of respect.
Out of care.
Out of knowing exactly where the line lives.

I keep my wanting disciplined.
I house it carefully.
I do not let it spill into his days.

But my body knows the difference
between presence and permission.
Between being seen
and being chosen.

He lives in the space I do not enter.
The bright one.
The one that would cost too much.

So I take him as he comes.
Brief.
Contained.
Careful.

And I carry the rest—
the unsaid,
the almost,
the way my thoughts still reach
even when my hands do not.

© 2026 Wynter Rayne. All rights reserved.