Still Here

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STILL HERE

— the third poem

Where Aria & Ethan's voices finally meet

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We’re standing

in the same room,

pretending not to notice

how much space

has learned our names.

It stretches between us—

soft, invisible,

heavy with everything

we didn’t say.

Your fear.

My hurt.

Suspended in the air

like dust in sunlight—

harmless

until you look too closely

and realize

it’s everywhere.

You go quiet.

I go careful.

We move around each other

like this love is already cracked

and one wrong breath

might finish the job.

Your hands hesitate

before they touch me.

Mine stay open,

even though they remember

what it feels like

to reach

and come back empty.

You love me.

I know you do.

I just don’t know

if you love me

enough

to stop whispering your doubts

to the walls

instead of letting them bruise

your way out of your mouth

and into me.

And you—

you see it.

The way I flinch

when your voice drops.

The way I listen

even when I swear

I’m not listening anymore.

You know I heard you.

You just don’t know

how to un-say

something that finally sounded

too much like truth.

So we stand here—

two people gripping the same love

from opposite ends,

both terrified that pulling harder

won’t bring us closer,

but will be the thing

that finally breaks it.

I want to ask you

to choose me again.

You want to ask me

to stay.

Neither of us speaks.

Because love—

real love—

is terrifying

when it’s this fragile.

When it sounds like glass.

Feels like memory.

And still asks to be trusted

with bare hands.

So we pause.

Here.

In this moment

before courage

or collapse.

Still here.

And maybe that’s the beginning.

Or maybe it’s the bravest thing

either of us has ever done—

choosing not to leave

before we learn

how to hold each other

without bleeding.

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Author’s Note 🤍

I didn’t write this to be dramatic.

I wrote it because I’ve lived in this moment.

Because I know what it’s like to love someone deeply

and still feel the space grow between you—

quietly, without warning, without villains.

I think we talk a lot about love ending.

We don’t talk enough about the part

where it almost does.

This poem — all three of them — came from wondering

what happens in that space.

When one person is hurting

and the other is afraid.

When neither of you is wrong,

but both of you are bleeding

in ways you don’t know how to name yet.

Writing both sides wasn’t planned.

It just… happened.

Because love isn’t one voice.

And pain rarely belongs to only one person.

If you’ve ever loved someone through the first crack—

if you’ve ever stayed quiet

because you were scared to make it worse—

if you’ve ever chosen *still here*

over walking away—

this was written for you.

Thank you for reading something this honest.

Thank you for sitting in the pause with me.

And if it hurt a little…

I think that means you understood it.

🤍 Cassie

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