The Patience of Ripening
You were picked straight from the stem—
a fruit fresh atop the bowl of offerings,
something that must be
fleece laid over blade.
Not taken, but accepted.
Not bitten, but cradled.
And still, I would let you be
the spiked fruit between my teeth—
If you asked.
If not to taste your sweet,
then to feel your sting
against my tongue.
Pain can be a kind of proof,
and love, a kind of wound
you grow around.
I apologize
if I act too fast—
it’s not hunger, not wholly.
I am absent in the shape of affection—
I mistake kindness for feast.
Its a cruel thing I must train myself to hold,
like fire in the cupped hands of someone born frostbitten.
But you—
you are the first warmth
after too long buried in frost.
The breath I never meant to hold.
And now,
I do not know how to exhale
without spilling your name.
I would trace every bract down your skin.
I would cup your name like spring water,
and drink until I forget every frost that came before you.
Let me learn the patience of ripening—
to watch without reaching,
to want without wounding.
If I must love you,
let it be like dawn across a thawing field— no rush, nor taking.
Only the reverence of light
touching what it hopes to keep warm.
Copyright © olivette nomoore | Year Posted 2025
|