Sarah Denmark
You do not need music
when the thought of him becomes its own rhythm:
your pulse the downbeat,
your breath the syncopation
of a song not yet written.
This is how love begins:
not with grand declarations,
but with the quiet choreography
of a body learning
how to move differently –
How your hands, once idle,
now trace invisible patterns in the air,
rehearsing the curve of his shoulder
you’ve never touched.
How your feet, once steady,
falter mid-step,
distracted by the memory of a laugh
you swear you’d follow like a melody.
You’ve never danced with him.
But isn’t it strange?
How the body knows the grammar of longing
before the mind catches up –
how it sways, restless,
to a tune only you can hear.
Love is not always a thing spoken.
Sometimes,
it’s the way you catch yourself
humming as you walk,
your gait uneven,
as if the ground beneath you has shifted.
Sometimes,
it’s the way your fingers drum the table,
mapping out a rhythm that could, in another life,
be the prelude to a waltz.
You do not need music.
You are already dancing.