Embers at the Threshold

We were two flames leaning toward each other,
twin constellations that forgot how vast the sky was,
believing the universe ended
at the curve of your smile
and began again
in the hush between our breaths.

Our love was not gentle.
It was monsoon rain on thirsty earth,
wild, drenching, unashamed.
We spoke in glances that burned like summer,
in touches that stitched dawn into dusk.
Even the silence between us was warm,
like a shawl around shivering hours.

But pride, small, sharp as a pebble in the shoe,
found its way onto our road.
A word misplaced.
A tone misunderstood.
Two mirrors facing each other,
reflecting hurt never meant to exist.

We did not fall apart in thunder.
No storm split the sky.
Only the quiet cracking of ice
beneath feet that did not know
they were standing on winter.

Distance arrived, not as a villain or a wound,
but as a fog
that wandered in uninvited.

We stood on opposite shores
of a river neither of us meant to make,
each believing the other
had stepped back first,
though neither hand
was truly withdrawn.

I left with anger in my voice,
not in my heart.
And you, you held your silence
like a fragile cup,
afraid one more word
might shatter what remained.

Time passed like a slow train at dusk.
Regret came quietly,
sat beside me,
and whispered your name
into every empty room.

Only then did I see
there was no enemy between us,
only two hearts
too tender
to admit fear.

So I called you back,
not with pride,
but with open palms.
I asked you to return
to the house we once built
from shared dreams.

You refused, not with cruelty,
not with bitterness,
but with a calm that told me
you were protecting yourself.

And I understood.

Because love, when bruised,
does not always return
to the place it fell.

Still,
listen to me now.

I do not accuse you.
I do not absolve myself.
We were both sunlight and shadow,
both fire
and the trembling wick.

I say only this,
and let it rest between us:

If you ever knock, I will not ask why.
I have not locked the door.

The hinges may creak with time,
the paint may peel from waiting,
but the threshold remembers your footsteps.
The walls still hold your laughter
like pressed flowers
in old books.

If you return,
it will not be to blame or apology,
but to a quiet room
where love once lived fiercely, and might again,
not as flames but as embers
that know
how precious warmth truly is.

Until then, I remain beside an open door,
where hope lingers
like the last light of evening,
soft
and still.