The Watching Place

 You read my poems

when no one’s watching—

as if my words are safe to visit,

but I am not.

You say I deserve consistency,

and then withdraw yours.

Say you're protecting me—

but from what?

Your absence doesn’t shield me;

it just confuses the ground

beneath something

I once thought was steady.

You reach for me

when the sky turns heavy,

when silence feels too loud.

And I’m here,

because that’s what friends do.

But then you go quiet again.

Leave me tracing

the echo of a presence

that never quite stays.

I do not call this cruelty.

I call it conflict.

Something in you wants connection,

but fears what it asks of you.

Still—

I’ve had friends before.

And they have not hidden.

They have not made me

decode their distance

like a puzzle I never asked for.

So I wait.

Not because I need you

to prove anything,

but because I need to know

what your friendship means

when it’s not bruised by hesitation.

And if the answer

never comes clearly,

that too will speak.

Because friendship,

the real kind,

doesn’t walk in shadows.

It stays.

It shows up.

It doesn’t flinch

when you reach back.