ZOYA GREGORY
In the vastness,
where time loosens
and the world opens its doors,
buried feelings rise
like spring water from dark earth.
Through the ridges and valleys of this life
we have come to one another,
and in that finding
there is a quiet joy
the body remembers
before the mind can speak.
I am no longer lost
in the maze of my own mind.
Beside you,
the old loneliness gives way,
and something in me awakes—
not innocent,
not perfect,
not unscarred,
but willing again
to be undone by light,
undone by love.
Cheek to cheek,
we move through meadows
and along the edges of streams.
I tuck sunlight
into your midnight dreams,
and for a little while
the day grows gentler around us.
Side by side,
we lift our faces
to the auroras,
their green fire wavering above us.
I kiss you slowly,
with intention,
as if each kiss
were a prayer laid
upon mortal skin.
We know
we are given only
a touch of woodland time—
brief as mist between the pines,
fading like warmth
left in the palm
after a hand has been held.
Flesh falters.
Blood cools.
One day
even your hand
will loosen from mine.
Perhaps that is why
I hold each caress so carefully,
as if love burns brightest
where it cannot remain.
The hour passes.
The light withdraws.
What we cherish most
is always passing through us.
And still—
or because of this—
I love you more fiercely,
more tenderly,
as though the heart,
knowing what the body cannot keep,
must answer
by opening all the way.
At twilight,
when the air turns blue
and the first stars appear,
we wander hand in hand
without needing to speak.
The path rises before us,
and still we go on,
drawn by that quiet knowing
that has followed us
through more than one lifetime.
If our hearts cannot speak,
what then shall we say?
What words could bear
this nearness,
this sorrow folded
inside every blessing,
this strange mercy
of being flesh and blood
and still daring
to love what will not remain?
Perhaps nothing.
Perhaps language fails
where the soul has already knelt.
Let us not ask
for foolish perfection.
Perhaps it is enough
that your hand finds mine
while there is still warmth in it.
Under silvered nights,
beneath Alhambra’s glow,
our hearts recover
their old rhythm,
as though they have known this music
long before this hour
and are only now remembering
what it asks of us.
Above us,
the stars continue
their patient shining.
Below them,
we stay close,
listening to each other breathe,
grateful for the small miracle
of being here together.
If there is a promise,
it lives here:
not that time will spare us,
not that the body will keep us,
but that love returns
to the breakable world
and asks again
to be trusted.
With every heartbeat,
it begins again.
It is still
your hand in mine—
brief,
mortal,
trembling,
and dearer for that.
Omniverse Traveler
