If you looked for me, you would find me crumpled,
in the darkest corners of a house like my home, but with the furniture moved,
and the walls painted the wrong colour.

It’s paler, quieter than I would have liked.
I was asked to turn the music down, so I did as I was told.
Kept the door locked, not even opening the windows.
Our hearts meet in the shadows, the darkest alleyways, hands barely touching.
Her words are little more than faint whispers, echoing in the emptiness around us.
I feel it inside my body, dragging me down, towards the darkest, deepest pit.

This is how she survives: pressing herself along shadow-lit walls,
a knife in her pocket, her home dulled down. A house built upon secrets and fear
is no home. But I creep along with her, hand just touching hers-she is not alone.

Only, when I do redecorate, I realise my home isn’t as empty as I thought.
There’s plenty of paintings, the furniture is lovely. The windows, flower-lined,
are left wide open. I am able to let sunlight in, as long as I unveil the curtains.

I can survive without our private love, but can I live?

She is the water that I drink, the food that nourishes me, the air that I breathe,
the gentle sleep that carries me to shore, the reason I get up in the morning,
and what I think about at night.

She becomes a chameleon, trying her hardest to fit in with her surroundings.
If not, her spirit will be killed, and the light I love may leave her eyes.
A loss, a grief so big it could not be named. Me holding her through would never be enough.

So, to survive, I imitate her:
keeping the singing of my soul quiet, the beating of my heart not for her,
but for myself, or some mysterious other.
I accept that I cannot stare into the horizon, hoping, when the view I have now is obscured
by darkness and fear.

She will never know how she sustains me, fills me with overwhelming, painful love,
because it would break her heart. I would rather break my own heart than hers.
So, I stay still, quiet, hardly able to hear myself breathe,
until I do not know whether I am even alive at all, or a ghost, a mirage even,
of something that would be beautiful, but could never be.

My view is not of the horizon ahead,
or the star-crossed skies above, but her, my constant, my love.

She is the axis that keeps my world turning: invisible, but always there.
Even if, in all her multitudes, she can only ever contain a private love.
Minds full of secrets, hearts full of pain, smiles full of sadness,
lives devoid of true joy, because what is joy if fear is constant?

Is love to be constantly scared? Is fear love, and is love fear?
Is love worth the fear? Is survival worth hiding in the shadows, living a half-life?

I only wish I held the answers. Instead, my hand tentatively grips her heart, and hers mine,
stood still in an unknown territory, while the world carries on without us,
yet our own worlds keep turning, sustained by a secret love that cannot live out loud.