After

Your hair was damp against my palm.

The vulnerability of your nape,

the place where your neck met your shoulders,

the only soft thing about that moment.

I stood there after.

Didn't know where my hands should go.

Didn't know that helplessness

was a kind of love,

just standing in the doorway,

watching you rinse your face,

knowing I couldn't make it okay,

that nothing I said would land,

that this—

my presence, my useless presence—

was all I had.

You looked up. Your eyes were still wet.