LGBTQ+ Poem: you were a wildflower thought, by Ivy Hamilton

you were a wildflower thought
blooming in the corner of my mind

not loud
not certain
but enough to make me wonder
what it might feel like
to be chosen by someone like
you

you carried the storm in your silences
and i mistook it for stillness
your heart a locked room i was never
granted the key to
but oh, how i lingered outside
waiting for the light beneath the door
to shift

you were a fragment of a dream
i dared to touch with waking hands.

and it slipped
as all illusions do
not cruelly
but as if it had never intended
to stay

i do not curse you
nor do i beg you to turn around
some souls are comets
bright
breathtaking,
and never meant to orbit

but i am not empty in you absence
i am the sky that remains
i am
the soil
where softer things grow

and though you will not return
i will not close

i am still becoming
the kind of love that stays

goodbye, sweet maybe
thank you for the ache
thank you for reminding me
how deeply i can feel
and how softly i can let go

goodbye, sweet maybe
goodbye, soft glance
goodbye to the dance

we didn’t get to dance