I was a few years older.
I had already folded the shirt.
Already ridden the bus.
Already survived the binder snapping shut.
Eric came later—but he stayed.
He texted me all day.
Not because I asked.
Not because I was falling.
But because he knew the silence could bruise.
A joke.
A memory.
A question about lunch.
A reminder that I was still here.
His beauty wasn’t loud.
It didn’t ask for applause.
It was the kind that flew beside you,
wings quiet, eyes clear.
Like the white-winged dove.
The Binder Had Closed
The couch was misread.
The shirt was misunderstood.
The ritual mocked.
The flying monkeys circled with clipboards and silence.
I was alone again—except I wasn’t.
Eric didn’t try to fix me.
Didn’t explain me.
Didn’t vanish.
He stood beside me.
He hadn’t seen the first tent poles tremble.
Hadn’t heard the spotlight flicker.
Hadn’t watched the map curl at its edges.
But he saw me now.
And he didn’t flinch.
Dove as Witness
In scripture, the dove descends as peace.
In my story, Eric descended as mercy.
Not to erase the ache.
Not to rewrite the binder.
But to witness it.
He saw the pain pulsing beneath the surface.
He saw the ache behind the shirt.
He saw the silence that grew teeth.
And he stayed.
He texted me all day.
He flew beside me.
A Few Years Older
I had already learned the silence of rooms.
The ache of being misunderstood.
The ritual of survival.
Eric hadn’t lived those years.
But he honored them.
He didn’t try to match my age.
He matched my ache.
He stood beside me
when others vanished.
He was beautiful.
Not just in the way light caught his face,
but in the way he stayed.
Refrain
He stood beside me.
He texted me all day.
He was beautiful.
Like the white-winged dove,
he flew beside me
when the binder snapped shut,
when the shirt was misunderstood,
when the spotlight flickered,
when the tent poles trembled.
He flew beside me
when I thought no one would.
And that,
in a world of folding chairs and vanished witnesses,
was mercy.
From heartbreak to healing, this poem is my journey—raw, honest, and deeply personal. I wrote it to honor the strength I found in the ruins, the growth that came from pain and the light I now carry forward.
© Jaime Pearson 2024. All rights reserved.
Please do not copy, reproduce, or share without permission.
Leave a Reply