Poetic Reflection: Samuel, Lying Awake in the Dark The window is open, and the stars fall in like seeds. You sleep beside me, your back a warm hillside my breath grazes, a place I know now with the soles of my soul. I was not raised to speak the names of men in my mouth like psalms. But your name tastes like soft bread and river water and the silence I’ve been aching for. They say a man is a stone and must not feel the fire. But your fire did not burn me. It made my blood sing. Tonight I held you like I hold a shovel in spring— with purpose, with weight, with the hunger to shape something that lasts from soil and sweat and need. You said nothing afterward, but I heard everything in the way you sighed— a thank you, a question, a door you dared to leave unlocked. I will not speak of love. Not yet. But this— this was not just skin and salt. This was a prayer in a language I never learned but understood. And when the morning comes, I will still be here, ready to speak it again with hands and hips and breath. If you'll let me.