I save a place at the table
for the conversations we'll never have
and keep a pillow warm
on the empty side of dreams.

Sometimes I catch myself
listening for your footsteps in crowded rooms
searching faces for recognition.

You exist in the spaces
between what is and what could be
a phantom limb of the heart
aching with beautiful possibility.

I love you in hypotheticals
in the language of almost knowing
you only as the shape of my longing.