I saved my longing for winter,
the way some keep a coat for a cold that hasn't come yet.
Dreams slipped in through a window I forgot to lock.
Desire sat awake long after the house had gone quiet.
I couldn't name what was missing.
It moved through the rooms like something I used to own.
Every silence held a question I never finished asking.
I listened anyway.
Nothing answered.
My direction changed without telling me first.
Some roads simply stopped being there.
Old dreams stopped meaning what they used to mean,
so I kept them anyway, like keys to doors that moved.
Longing doesn't ask to be saved.
It sits quietly under the small talk, waiting.
Desire leaves nothing behind to prove it was there.
Distance remembers what I let myself forget.