Where Shadows Rest
He wasn’t afraid of the parts of her that stayed quiet.
And she never asked him to become brighter than he truly was.
They found each other in that gentle hour when the day grows tired and the world softens, when truths come out because they finally feel safe enough to exist.
His darkness was never dramatic.
It showed in the way he noticed corners before centers, in how his laughter arrived slowly, like trust had to open the door before joy could step in. People called him complicated. Heavy. Too much.
She had learned long ago that depth often makes people uncomfortable.
When they talked, it felt like sitting near a small fire on a cold night — not loud, not wild, but alive. He spoke about battles he had already buried, about choices that changed him, about a heart that learned how to protect itself without turning to stone. She didn’t listen with the intention to repair him. She listened to know him.
And that changed everything.
He didn’t pursue her in a rush.
He stayed. He chose. Calmly. With the certainty of someone who understands what it means to walk through darkness and still reach for another hand.
Between them lived a quiet charge — not demanding, not urgent. Just present. Shared silences. Looks that lasted a second longer than necessary. Hands that almost met and then waited.
He saw her hidden places and didn’t try to escape them.
She saw his and didn’t try to rewrite them.
And somewhere in that honest space, where nothing needed to be disguised, they found something rare.
Not a love that consumes,
but a love that stays warm.
Steady. Patient.
Like coals that survive long after the flames are gone.
She realized then that the deepest love stories are not the loud ones.
They are the ones you feel in your chest long before you ever speak them.
This resonated with me today. Sometimes, the journey feels like a roller coaster. Sometimes roller coasters are adrenalin and excitement and unchecked energy. Sometimes they are fear and exhaustion and trepidation. Today sort of feels like the latter, but the poem seems to resonate today.
That is all.
~Peace
