Words by Dominic Riccitello | Writer & Modern Poet - Page 4 of 191 - A collection of writing by Dominic Riccitello — intimate conversations, personal essays, and poetic reflections on relationships, loss, and self-discovery.

Apr 24, 2026

our atoms

i light you in ways of fire
in these moments where i build
beyond what actually was
beyond the edges of what we touched
and what we left unnamed

we paint each other in theory
to define we
instead of who we are
i paint you into being
in strokes i can control
because becoming is frightening
and the unknown breathes too loud at night
i decide, in time,
how i think of you
not out of ego
but out of safety
out of the need to hold something still

we stand before each other
at the edge of this life
like something almost said
protecting ourselves
in the silence between words
enjoying
the closeness we don’t admit
diving
without knowing how deep it goes
deciding if we love
what we don’t know
or just the feeling of almost

and these are the things
running through my mind
half past midnight
when everything feels louder than it should
i look for you
beside windows
in reflections i call to
in glass that bends your shape
because sometimes i don’t see
i just speak
into the distance
into whatever we call this
hoping it answers back

they say our atoms are replaced
every decade
and some remain
hidden in places we don’t notice
in skin, in breath, in memory

so i wonder if you remember
how our touch feels
after all this time
if it lingers somewhere beneath you
i look for you in reflections
in memory and in reality
past the windows we drive by at night
raindrops on the sidewalk
puddles holding broken versions of light
the city repeating itself in pieces

if we are replaced
do you remember how it felt
or do we only remember the idea of it
every time i say your name
does it reach anything real
do those particles
do you think they remember
or do they just carry the shape of it

i sit in this
longer than you realize
longer than temptation can build
longer than silence should stretch
we lie to ourselves wondering
how to wander
without losing what we almost had
how to guide ourselves through
this life of ours
without naming what we were

and i remember
the shirt you wore
on that dark night
how it moved when you turned
your touch
the pressure of it
the way it stayed after
the wind
moving through us like it knew
the warmth
settling into my chest
the beginning of summer
when everything feels possible
the way our fingers interlocked
like they had done it before

we came running
too fast to stop
too soft to hold
like something already slipping
lips like red
pressed into moments we couldn’t keep
eyes as deep as blue
holding more than you said
sheets to the wind
nothing grounded
atoms in the sand
scattered but still near
lost but not confused
moving inside the time it’s been
like it never fully left
half past midnight
again and again
left to right
back and forth
it was our time
even if we never said it

i think we both made it out
alright
maybe just not the same

words by dominic riccitello
Apr 21, 2026

interconnected body of salt water

i feel the rope
the edges of how it grips
to touch a void
the mark it leaves behind

rings of your hands
the veins, how they slip
i plead to noise
to echoes
to the way sound carries us

the vibration of how we meet
in moments like this
where time bends
and we speak to each other
through distance
through constellations
of how we used to exist

i find myself
at the ridge of a mountain
watching the voices of your name
and i speak in plural
because i never know who i get
in moments like this

in moments where i lose patience
with where i have been

we exist like this
to understand
to breathe
to live between a creek and an ocean
to decide
if we belong to what was
or what we thought it should have been

i leave you here
with the lisp behind your tongue
the way you use words
without holding their weight
how they fall from you
down your neck

with hands i used to hold
the veins
how they met mine
when we touched

i used to love
the pressure
the tension
the way we lived
between moments

where you knew what i meant
before i said your name

at times i feel us blur
like words on paper
like a house that creaks at night
holding the noise we leave behind

and i expect you to understand
maybe more than i should

still, i leave you here
with the words i couldn’t keep
like mondays when we split
and everything we said
drifts from where we left it

we move through these details
we bend toward each other
the touch leaves us
apart, yet still held

if you believe
in the weight of your fingers on mine
then you believe
in the way things can bend

but choosing
is something else

i will leave you in the echoes
it’s for you to decide

the creek
or the ocean

words by dominic riccitello
Apr 21, 2026

in depth

and i feel how you touch
hands atop mine
between lines we don’t say
in deep nights i
fought to reach
under lights like this
where you find me
and i
enter this feeling
wherever we are

time touches us
in moments
in the melancholy
the bass
i hear your voice
how we spill
how i
touch you in somber nights like this

i write for you
for this
to understand
how your warmth meets mine
how i collide with the thought that i might
have found what i was looking for

and i hesitate there
in the space between knowing and doubt
where your eyes hold something
i can’t fully name
but i feel it
in the way you stay a second longer
in the way your hands don’t leave right away

and we write in these tendencies
like we’ve done this before
like something in us remembers
before we ever said it out loud
behind where we met that saturday
where everything felt accidental
but nothing really was

i wake to be
the longing to feel
how you breathe
close enough to hear it
close enough to mistake it for mine

we take moments and hold them
even when they slip
even when they don’t ask to stay
i take time and give it intention
like it might listen
like it might become something more

we hold time between us
it softens
it hardens
it bends around what we don’t say
it becomes what we ask of it
even when we don’t know what that is

i used to be afraid of what life would be
instead of what it was in that moment
and i beg
but i don’t plead
i ask to understand
how your mind recalls what i leave
the touch of my hand
the way i pull your hip
fingers at your neck
does this soften

i watch this to etch this
to understand what we could be
lips do touch
sometimes they don’t feel
but the grasp at the edges
that’s how i feel
that’s how i speak
these things on my mind

and we wait for this
the ridges
the past, our present
the way we hold
i won’t let that go
i promise

words by dominic riccitello
Apr 17, 2026

92236

in these moments i feel this
how it used to be
seconds before
the wind blew like this

we rise from
conversations we had
in the before
in the details
in the moments where i could
say what i wanted
before it broke

before the silence
started filling in the spaces
we didn’t name

we melt into
fine lines and lost rights
echoes and some quiet resilience
i’m broken by all of these things
a beautiful defeat
weakened wings and tired ceilings

i break to find these late nights
my glass of virtue splintered
pieces i still try to hold
like they mean something

fingers atop yours
how we melt together
like we’ve done this before
like memory lives in the skin

i think you’re afraid
i feel like something whole
so embodied in who i am
like i’ve finally stepped into it

does that scare you
it doesn’t scare me
not anymore

down by the fence
on the way to wade by the tree
where everything feels slower
like time forgets to move

i touch you in that moment
where fingers learn to grasp
they interlock
and hesitate for just a second
like they know this matters

and i know you question

those feelings
of how we’re supposed to be
what this is allowed to become
if we let it

but something pulls
deeper than thought
and my lips speak
before i can stop them

can you question it
when it feels like this
i know you feel it
the reeling

the way it catches in your chest
like breath you didn’t mean to hold

how time bends
and my eyes found
what they were looking for
all along

in the smallest movement
in the way you look back
like you almost understand

i write these words
to leave you here
for you to read

in the streets that hold me
where i drift into sleep
where everything echoes softer
but still finds its way back to you

still touching your sides
like memory doesn’t need permission

it feels like heaven
to feel it here
even if it’s temporary
even if it slips

i barely know your name
yet i like the feeling
of you right here

like something i wasn’t meant to keep
but was meant to feel

and maybe that’s enough
maybe that’s all this ever was

just a moment
that knew it wouldn’t last
and stayed anyway

words by dominic riccitello
Apr 14, 2026

we find this in the way we are

between walls and streets
water and sand
i touch you here
between years of our currents

these waves, how they ride
i taste you in theory
the theory of us
two inside this
like water in cracks
how we slip
how you slide

how i turn your hands
up toward me
i feel you
the salt of your skin
the quiet heat of your sweat

we move in the wind
i speak your name in your ear
we make moments on pavement
swaying into something
that doesn’t ask to last

i could leave you here
where we only ever meet
in passing feeling
where the wind touches your skin
before i do

the way we melt into
half spoken things
the rasp of your tongue
the pull in my wrists
your fingers finding mine
like they knew before i did

and i take you
to leave you
to feel you
to reach and not hold

we build places from nothing
we press sweetness into wounds
we ruin what we touch
just to prove it was there

and i hold
what i can’t keep

because i know
things end
even while they’re happening

so i say your name
because it means something
like i would like it to stay

i leave you here
not beside me
but beside everything

and i carry you
in shape of this

do you realize this

i do

but can you

words by dominic riccitello
Mar 26, 2026

taste

details in you
are where i remember
a desire worth longing for
something that lingers
just beneath skin
just beyond words

i break into pieces
slowly
to taste you
to touch you
to etch you
into places i can’t explain

we perch atop buildings
above everything we’ve known
the grasp
the taste
the roughness of your fingers
tracing meanings into me

i taste you in symmetry
in the balance we pretend to hold
divided fingers i grip
tight enough to feel you stay

teeth against your ears
breath caught between seconds

can you taste this
the way it lives in the air
i’d die for you
just to feel it once more
can you feel this

the drips
the drop
the slow pull of time

the sweat along your
lips — i taste you here
where everything softens
beside the warmth of sheets
that hold what we don’t say

the moments
drawn out longer than they should be
the aggression
the power
the quiet underneath it

it slips between the cracks
in the sheets
in the spaces we leave open

i feel you
even when you pull away

can you feel this

words by dominic riccitello
Mar 22, 2026

between ourselves

to ease into how i melt
by the ways of water
i release into
the motion of rapids i lean toward

i twine myself in my mind
wrapping edges of branches
like kelp in sand
i work for you
between the moons we chase at night

i repeat to bend
the name of you at my end
i let it sit
until it slips from what it was

and i taste to love
licking the edges of the envelope
poetry against stone
something held
before it falls apart

i take you in desire
of the fire burning in my hands
the touch
a madness i don’t name
but keep

and i take you
as you come
not as i want
but close enough to stay

there’s something in it
i don’t follow
something that moves
before i understand

i have felt this before
at night
but not where it stays
like this

it lingers somewhere
between breath
and the space after

and i want
i don’t finish it

i hold you
in the way things leave

right here
as it shifts
as it almost becomes

and still

i stay
as if it might evolve

words by dominic riccitello
Mar 19, 2026

delilah

to touch lights
in ways we melt into
things we say
and words, how they skip
between cracks of the streets
we walk through on nights where
temperature peaks and feels
almost
at ease

i taste to touch
to feel, to bask
to sign my name in meanings
in choices i seek in this life
and we make our ways
to hideaways with names like
delilah

i touch these moments
between broken-down vices
and i sleep between words
white sheets
broken meanings you believe
you feel in moments like this

i remind you to remember this
a touch felt poetic
sudden grasps of accidents
and i make you
to touch you,
to rise from the confidence i speak

i look at you in ways i can’t say
in moments only you can feel
we take this time
i ask for it
not to keep it, but to
remember it
in my mind
like times like this
and i expect you to know
to ask without question

did i extend it?
did you feel it?
can you taste it?
with hands that can touch
with fingers that can grasp
i leave you here
beside a boulevard of regards
to be between a meaning and a man
to walk within these shoes
to accept it is to feel it

i touch you
in little moments
in expectations you didn’t expect
i hope you feel it
i wrote this for you
do you accept it?

words by dominic riccitello
Mar 6, 2026

our fragments

for this to be
in this life to exist
i pretend to use
words in sentences for what they mean
i paint you in the entirety of how i explain
and if time exists in the way you are
then you are the only thing real to me

because what is real
if not the moment something is felt
and i felt you
in the quiet parts of my mind
in the places where thought dissolves
and something softer remains

at night i find
the creeks to be calming
their slow voices
moving over stone and memory
to know we exist in this life
or is this a dream to me
but i believe the little rocks
that float in longing
the way they move without asking
the way they belong to the current

and maybe we are like that
small things carried by time
touching briefly
before the water decides

and bliss finds me
in the horrors of what we called
a street i can’t even call
home because
it feels to not exist in
this life
walls that remember voices
corners that held our silence
places where we stood
pretending the world was simple

i believe we intersected and swapped
something between our hands
something invisible
something that changed the air

the universe i feel lives in the parallel
a second version of this place
where time folds gently
and the choices we made
still echo somewhere else

intersections sometimes meet
briefly
quietly
like two lines learning each other
before separating again

but we pray to find something else
something that stays
something that does not dissolve
when morning comes

in this time
in this life
in the fragile moment
where we remember
that even passing things
can feel like forever

words by dominic riccitello
Feb 24, 2026

it’s windy

in solitude i remember moments
roads we cling to
before the hinges broke
on doors we swung

i stand in the revolving
trying to find myself in electricity
in the magnitude of what we become
yet i perceive you in flashes
in the way the glass taps the counter
the granite we chose in the fall of nineteen

to become is what we feel
we feel what we become
in the years we gave to time
and i commend you
in this
and in bliss

and i long for time
not because it exists
but because it was

we stand in our truth and hold still
i find you here between sprinklers
the grass grows and sometimes it burns
we carry this to bring something forth

i’m not sure if you loved
i’m not sure if you feel
i’m not sure if any of this was real

but it was to me

and if time feels real
then it is

and i equate you with what i exist inside
in time
in bliss
in heaven
and in the wind of what you call this

words by dominic riccitello