‘boy in process‘
I kept close without saying why,
neither for beauty nor for certainty,
but because something in me watched
the steadiness with which you moved
through rooms I had not yet learned
— a steadiness I was still learning to face.
You saw the unfinished parts,
the rawness I carried,
and whatever brightness I offered
you held only briefly.
I stayed looking, even then,
as the small warmth between us cooled.
Afterward the day rose unevenly—
light paling, ground lifting,
the hour shifting in ways I could not correct.
A boy-in-process tries to continue,
not stepping out of what shaped him,
holding only what remains
keeping what the days carried forward.
.
