Age 21
His name is Isley.
We have not been apart for long in many weeks.
Every stolen moment is fire,
and I have stopped trying to put it out.
He does not speak much of where he came from.
When I ask, he turns his eyes away,
like the answer is written somewhere far behind him.
But I see it; the hurt that never leaves him.
The way silence hangs on him heavier than armor.
There is a darkness in him too.
I feel it when his voice hardens,
when his hands tremble, then still.
It frightens me.
Yet I cannot stay away from it.
It draws me as much as it warns me.
Like a cliff edge I cannot stop standing on.
When he smiles, rare and fleeting
it feels like a secret only I am allowed to keep.
When he touches me, I remember that I am not a vessel,
not a thread, not a cage.
I am alive.
I will not let him go.
— Orryn, Age 21
