It enters like steam,
soft-lipped,
curling into the hollows
left by hope.

Not presence—
not quite.
More like a scent
worn by another body
and forgotten on yours.

What’s given
comes in fragments:
a slow pour,
a fingertip drag,
a sigh mistaken for touch.

Never the whole glass.
Just the condensation.

Elsewhere,
the nectar spills freely—
sweet words offered like fruit
to any mouth open wide enough
to catch the fall.

There is no malice in the offering.
Only a hunger
that doesn’t know how to stay.

And so the feast
becomes famine,
even with lips still sticky.

What remains
is the sliver.
The pulse.
The ghost of heat
from a match struck
just once
in your direction.

It is enough
to burn beneath.
Not enough
to be flame.

© 2026 Wynter Rayne. All rights reserved.