Quiet Hour

HER VOICE
We let the devil win— that’s how it felt when your “we can’t cross that line” became the very line you stepped over first.
You reached for me, and I let myself fall— not gracefully, not wisely, but honestly. And now I’m the one trying to rise from a feeling I never meant to drown inside.
You say we can’t keep doing this. You say we should just be friends. But we tried that, and the heart refused to obey.
I can’t be your lover. I can’t be your friend. And I can’t be a stranger— too much of you is stitched into the quiet places of me now.
Damned if we do, damned if we don’t. I don’t know where to place us when every place hurts in its own way.
HIS VOICE
We let the devil win— that’s the truth I keep circling like a wound. I said we couldn’t cross that line, but I’m the one who reached for you anyway.
I made the first move. You didn’t push me away. And now I’m pretending I can unfeel the moment your lips met mine— a lie I tell myself more than I tell you.
We can’t keep this going. We can’t pretend it’s harmless. So, I offer the old cliché— “I want to be your friend.” But even I know that’s a story, we can’t hold steady.
I can’t be your lover. I can’t be your friend. And I can’t be a stranger— not after knowing how deeply wanting you settled into me.
Damned if we do, damned if we don’t. I don’t know how to stay, and I don’t know how to walk away.
TOGETHER
We can’t be lovers. We can’t be friends. We can’t be strangers.
Maybe we can be hiking friends— neutral ground, open sky, a place where the air is wide enough to hold what we can’t.
But even then, the truth follows us: too many feelings to pretend it’s nothing, too much risk to pretend it’s something.
Damned if we do, damned if we don’t. Caught in the middle, caught in the pull, caught in a story we never meant to write.
We can’t be friends. We can’t be strangers. We just are— whatever this is, whatever remains after the line finally broke.