He’s carrying something heavy and he won’t set it down. The more he holds it, the more he hardens around it. I want to be the place he exhales. I want to hand him a reason to lean without flinching at the word. I want to say, give me part of it, I can hold it and I won’t drop it. My brain writes sentences I never say, whole conversations where he lets me in. In those, his voice goes soft again, the way it does when he talks to me alone, and the cold in him warms enough to glow. I want to be everything for him.
