Chiaroscuro

You architect cathedrals on my spine,

each vertebra a prayer you understand.

In basement hours where inhibitions shine

like broken glass, I study your command.

The way you orchestrate my small defeats—

this careful choreography of need

where discipline dissolves into heartbeats

and I become the book that you can read.

But morning finds us strangers, fully dressed,

discussing politics over burnt toast.

Your hand adjusts my collar, nothing stressed,

the quiet custodian of what I trust most.

    Here lives the paradox I can't decode:

    you wreck me whole, then teach me how to hold.