words by dominic riccitello

we built our years in layers
quiet mornings
a shared glance over watered mugs
groceries half-remembered
and always the same way home

you grew into my silences
like ivy
like breath warming the corners
of the floor of our first home

i never marked the seasons
until they stopped arriving with you
twelve winters
each one softening
into the shape of something that stayed

love became less like thunder
and more like folding laundry
ordinary, precise
still full of touch

we broke without breaking
no storm
no slammed doors
just a widening
your smile reaching farther
from what i could carry

now i find you
in muscle memory
in how i reach for two plates
in the songs i still skip

it wasn’t that we stopped loving
but that we loved
ourselves more gently
and each other
from too far away

i want to say thank you
without unraveling

i want to hold the weight
of what we were
without asking it to stay

words by dominic riccitello