There's a moment in the life of every poem that decides whether it becomes a memory or a door.
Mine was a door.
And it creaked open at 2:17 a.m. with seven words:
"Then break me carefully."
He didn't sign it. He didn't have to.
I sat at my desk, blinking at the screen, heart thudding the way it does when something you've been bracing for arrives not with a bang, but with tenderness.
And tenderness, I was learning, was infinitely more disarming.
The days after that blurred and stretched like soft wax. I moved through them aware of everything...colors sharper, sounds more deliberate. Even the clink of my tea spoon against the mug sounded like a beat I needed to study.
I didn't write him directly.
I didn't need to.
Instead, I started walking the long way to the bookstore, passing the same crooked fig tree, the same poster-stained walls near the university steps. I was looking for something I didn't know the shape of, but I knew I'd recognize it when it found me.
It did.
The third morning, on a bench by the university chapel, I found an envelope.
My name. In that unmistakable looping handwriting , careful, like everything he touched.
Inside was a note. No date. No context.
"Saturday. 4PM. The greenhouse.
No performance. No pressure. Just you. Just me.
Let's see what the silence says this time."
My breath caught on that last line.
Because it meant he'd read the poem.
He knew it was me.
And still .... still ... he wanted to meet.
Saturday
It took me an hour to decide what to wear. Not because I was trying to impress him, but because I wanted to feel like myself. The me that existed before fear made a home in my ribcage. The me who didn't flinch at closeness.
I chose a soft olive sweater, loose linen pants, and tucked a pen into my pocket like armor.
It wasn't a date.
But it mattered.
I arrived early. The greenhouse was an old botanical garden that the city kept alive by sheer miracle. Vines curled up its rusted frame like it had grown into itself. The glass was smudged with time and sunlight. Inside, everything smelled like earth and eucalyptus.
He was already there.
Sitting on a stone bench beneath a flowering dogwood, sleeves rolled, collar open, notebook beside him like a silent witness.
He looked up and smiled in that way he did ... like he wasn't surprised, just relieved.
"You came," he said, voice soft enough not to disturb the roses.
"I didn't know if I would," I admitted. "But the silence started getting loud again."
He nodded like he understood too well.
We sat. Close, but not touching.
A breath passed. Then another.
"I wasn't sure if I should write back," I said.
"But you did."
"I did," I said. "In the only way I know how."
"I liked your poem," he said. "It made me want to be braver."
"You already are," I whispered.
He looked down. Smiled like that was too much and not enough.
We stayed like that for a while , letting the air hold what we didn't yet know how to say.
It wasn't awkward.
It was reverent.
Eventually, he spoke. "Can I tell you something strange?"
"Always."
"I didn't expect you to come," he said. "But I hoped you would. And I didn't want this to be a confession. I just wanted it to be... a beginning."
I swallowed. "I don't know how to start anything without overthinking it."
He tilted his head. "Then don't start. Just sit with me. That's all I need."
We let the moment settle. Like a leaf deciding whether to fall.
After a while, we began to talk. Not about us. Not directly.
But about small things that shaped us.
He told me about the first poem he ever wrote , to a science teacher who told him his handwriting looked like art.
I told him about the first time I performed on stage , and forgot the last two stanzas but filled the silence with made-up words that somehow made people cry anyway.
He laughed. The sound was low, rich, full of something I wanted to bottle.
"It's funny," he said. "How we always remember the moments we thought we failed. And they're the ones that moved people most."
I nodded. "Maybe honesty makes more noise than perfection ever could."
He looked at me, eyes softening. "Is that what you think this is? Honesty?"
"No," I said. "I think it's the attempt."
And somehow, that felt more intimate than truth.
He handed me his notebook.
"Will you read something?" he asked.
"Of yours?"
He nodded. "But not the poem. Something else."
I opened the book gently, like touching a part of him he didn't show others. The page was filled with lists. Sentences. Observations. One read:
"She doesn't speak to fill space. She speaks to make it holy."
I stilled.
My hand tightened slightly.
He didn't explain.
He didn't need to.
The sun slanted through the greenhouse glass, catching the dust in golden streaks. I turned another page. A sketch , of me, I think. Just outlines. A figure on a bench, holding a notebook, hair caught in a breeze.
"You've been watching me," I said, gently.
"Only the parts you leave visible," he replied.
There was no malice in it. No ego. Just observation.
"You scare me," I told him.
He didn't flinch. "Why?"
"Because I want to trust you. And that's a risk I don't take lightly."
His voice dropped. "Then let me earn it. Slowly."
We didn't kiss.
We didn't even touch.
But when I stood to leave, he walked with me to the door, holding it open like a promise.
"Same time next week?" he asked.
I nodded. "Only if we don't bring poems."
He smiled. "Deal. Just truth?"
"Just the attempt," I echoed.
He watched me walk away but didn't follow.
And for once, the distance didn't feel like loss.
It felt like room to grow.
Later That Night
I lay in bed thinking of everything I didn't say. Not with regret, but curiosity.
Like: how did he know what not to say? How did he read my silences without rushing to fill them?
I wrote another poem that night.
It didn't rhyme. It didn't end neatly.
But it held something real.
"There are people who touch you
before they touch you.
Who undo a button in your mind
before they ever ask
what color your walls are."
I didn't send it.
I didn't need to.
Because sometimes, knowing someone sees you is enough.
Even if they don't name what they're looking at.
One Week Later
He showed up on time. Again.
This time, with coffee and no notebooks.
We walked. Quietly. Not beside each other, but with each other.
There's a difference.
We didn't define anything.
We didn't ask for guarantees.
But when we sat under the same dogwood again, and he handed me a bookmark he made , just a folded leaf pressed between pages of a quote I once posted online , I knew.
He was paying attention.
Not to impress.
Not to earn.
But because care, when it's real, doesn't ask to be noticed.
It just shows up.
Again.
And again.
And again.