the things you can't hear; the words i don't have
i needed the word that meant waking up to the sound of you coming home,
the sound of your footsteps behind the door, water running down the bathroom drain, when you're finally next to me and you sigh, no longer holding your breath, no longer drowning in the riptide that is stop signs and paychecks
i needed to know how to shape myself and the movements to make so i could tell you all this
but i never learned the shape of sound, and i can already feel the soft and even breath telling me you found sleep some time ago