The Way You Stay

I didn’t fall for you all at once, it was slower than that— like evening light quietly taking the room without asking. You stood there, laughing at something small, and somehow my whole day leaned toward you. I remember thinking— this is dangerous, this softness. Because you didn’t try to be anything, and still you were everything I kept noticing. The way your voice lowers when you mean something, the way silence around you never feels empty. And I swear— there are moments when the world goes on speaking but I only hear you. Not loudly, not like a storm, but like a pulse— steady, close, impossible to ignore. If love is anything, maybe it’s this— wanting to stay a little longer than you should, just to exist in the same quiet as someone else.