words by dominic riccitello

after the part of you

i feel the twists
vertebrae of your neck
twisting on fine lines
waves and nines

i hide in forests of evergreen
wondering to wander
how you feel seen in shades of shadows
you walk with force
touch with delicacy

i extend into forms of diversion
forgetting where the silence goes
how breath curls beneath your questions

in rooms we never finished painting
i still trace shapes in corners
ghosts of your gestures
hung like lanterns in my chest

time folds softly in your absence
a paper crane sinking
into the lake of my waiting

still, i tilt toward the sound
of your unsaid return
holding the hilt
i forever found lurking

we move in night
i speak into why i say
what never quite means enough
how names soften when echoed too long
how longing is a quiet language

i ask the dark to hold me
the way you never said you would
but did
in the space between touch and retreat

i speak because the silence remembers
and i listen
for the part of you
that never meant to leave