The Ache That Never Leaves

I remember the way you stroked my belly,

soft hands tracing the curve

of a child waiting to be born,

to be breathing, laughing, thriving,

but never yours to claim,

never yours to hold.

Your fingers moved slow,

like you were afraid

to touch the truth,

to admit the love

you couldn’t say aloud,

carrying remorse

like a burden

in the silence between us,

a quiet echo

that never stopped.

I held my breath

because the silence

was heavier than words,

a hollow space

stretching between your touch

and the life growing inside me,

a life that belonged

to both of us

and yet to neither.

You wanted something

you could never own,

and I wanted to hold it all,

to hold you,

to hold the child

who lived and loved and thrived,

while the ache

of what we never said

pulled us deeper

into repeated acts

of holding on,

to memory,

to what wasn’t spoken,

to the fragile truth

that shaped us

in the quiet dark.