Locks click twice now, force of habit,
even when nobody’s coming up the stairs.

I tell the mirror I’m fine before it has time to ask,
get dressed in a hurry so it doesn’t catch me still.

Face turns toward the window whenever footsteps slow outside,
I count them past the door, exhale when they keep going.

Everyone who gets close eventually hears it,
my voice going flat and careful, like I’m reading it off a card.

I still leave the second cup on the drying rack,
though nobody here has needed it in months.

Sultry noon curdles into grey by four most days,
the kind of sky that can’t commit to one mood either.

A knock comes sometimes. I count to ten before I move,
like the door might forget I’m home if I wait long enough.

Barometer dropping in my chest before it drops outside,
I feel the storm coming before the weatherman does.

I want the rain and the closing door to be different things,
one leaves a rainbow I never catch in time, the other leaves nothing.

Tuesday the sun broke through for maybe six minutes,
I stood in the kitchen and let it hit the back of my neck.

Cup’s still on the rack. I rinse it anyway most mornings,
not sure yet if that’s habit or something closer to hope.

Hoping the next knock finds the door already open,
not promising I’ll get there. Just hoping I’m learning how.

• diimaan (08/09/2026)

I let the sun walk with me a while.
Its pale hand skims the grass.
The cool keeps what it wants,
and I do not ask it back.

The stream travels in a thin thought,
stone to stone, quiet and persistent.
Stones keep the day’s old heat,
moss keeps what the rain confided.

In the pines the air moves low,
a hush that learns my breathing.
There is space beside me on the path,
room in the air for a name I do not say.

Clouds gather like a patient herd.
Thunder writes its name far off.
I smile as if the lesson took,
while something under the ribs replies.

Nettles lean where the bank breaks.
Pitch from a split limb sweetens the shade.
A heron stands without ripple,
patient as a question no one answers.

Footprints soften in the damp dust.
I practice walking without echo,
letting the water decide my pace,
one careful step, then another.

Rain arrives in small sentences.
I let it write what I cannot.
The mouth of the stream darkens
and carries it all without complaint.

Dusk braids itself through the trees.
Crickets stitch the edges of the field.
Summer holds its silence like a breath,
the river brings a small lamplight back.

I stand at the bend and watch it pass.
It leaves a little glow along the stones.
I keep that quiet with me,
and call it enough to go on.

• diimaan (09/08/2025)

I left before the clouds had formed,
before the sky grew heavy-eyed,
thinking time would rinse the ache,
but memory never stays dry.

The streets we traced are just as wide,
but silence holds them differently.
The echo of your quiet laugh
still curls inside each willow tree.

I tried to chase a brighter place,
to find a sun that didn’t dim,
but none could match the way your touch
once warmed me softly, limb by limb.

The rain here isn’t kind or slow,
it doesn’t ask or let me hide,
it falls like questions left unsaid
and wets the space I feel inside.

Your name still stirs the morning wind,
a whisper folded in the breeze.
It brushes past in coffee steam,
in music humming through the leaves.

And if I stood where once we stood,
beneath that bench in shadowed green,
I wonder if you’d feel me near,
in all the things we left between.

So if the summer stayed unlit,
and if the skies refused to burn,
know somewhere in this distant dusk
my heart still waits for your return.

• diimaan (07/08/2025)

The days arrive like unopened letters,
tucked in folds of muted grey,
their meanings blurred along the seams,
as if the sun had lost its way.

The trees stand still, not quite in bloom,
not bare enough to name it grief,
they hold the weight of half-formed winds
like arms that once gave brief relief.

I pass the bench we met beneath,
where warmth once clung to worn-out wood,
your hand in mine, your breath so close,
the kind of hush no storm withstood.

The wind moves soft across my neck,
a pale imitation of your skin,
it leaves behind a chill that aches,
a hunger where your touch had been.

The rain falls light but never clears,
each drop a sigh I cannot speak,
I walk these streets not searching hope,
but chasing all that used to peak.

So let this summer stay undone,
with cloudy skies and veiled regrets,
for in this hush, I feel you still,
in every place the sun forgets.

• diimaan (05/08/2025)

Holding close the weight of past,
the moments lost, yet not in vain,
beneath the frost, the questions last,
what lingers here, but love and pain?

Over hills where silence grows,
the trees stand still in twilight’s air,
what heart recalls, the river knows,
its current steady, unaware.

Promises crumble like the leaves,
upon the wind, they drift and fade,
the earth, it holds the lives we weave,
what’s left behind, what’s yet remade.

Even now, the ache remains,
its shadow cast on winter’s ground,
but time, like streams through rocky veins,
flows onward where new paths are found.

Yesterday, its tether weak,
is softened by the moonlit snow,
the echoes dim, though still they speak,
of love once bright, now lying low.

New paths emerge where none had been,
beneath the frost, a thaw begins,
the trees reveal their lines within,
the scars of life, the marks of wins.

Every turn upon the road,
feels like a tale the woods might tell,
of roots that split, then still they grow,
a lesson bound in every swell.

Winds of change, they gently call,
to let the frozen branches sway,
and though their songs may rise and fall,
all life must bend to find its way.

Yearn no more for what has passed,
its quiet pulse fades soft and thin,
the forest whispers, “Nothing lasts,”
and yet the heart beats deep within.

Even as the night takes hold,
the stars retreat to skies unseen,
new stories rise, though slow and cold,
yet softer lies the space between.

As horizons stretch and pale with light,
the dawn unveils its muted hue,
a warmth that lifts, not fierce but bright,
a quiet guide to something true.

Remains of what the heart once knew,
are sown in earth where roots will grow,
and though the hurt feels sharp and new,
time moves where tender futures show.

• diimaan (23/12/2024)