Trace

To most, it’s nothing -just water and

salt. But sometimes, a single drop

holds the weight of years.

It begins as a shimmer in the

corner of the eye, quiet and

unannounced. It doesn’t ask for

permission. It simply falls-

graceful, deliberate-like the soul

exhaling what the mouth could

never say.

As it slips past the eye, it carries

the ache of memory. It traces the

red ridge of the nose, brushes the

cheek, sometimes warm with

longing, sometimes cold with

silence. Other times, it looses its

way to dry meadows where sorrow

has long since settled,tastes sweet,

then salt-like love and grief folded

Into one.

You forget to wipe it away.

Not out of carelessness,

but because for a moment, the

world pauses around it.

You remember the way you once

swallowed your tears as a child.

trading them for imaginary

strength. Back then, sadness felt

simpler. Now it returns layered-a

touch once too harsh shame

beneath silence, guilt without

confession, love that never had a

place to stay.

And still it falls.

Uninvited, unexplainable.

Not loud, not broken. Just there

Like a quiet ache dressed in silk.

Not out of despair, but something

softer. A quiet pull from beneath

the surface. It slips free without

warning, summoned by something you cannot name-an echo, a

scent, the nearness of someone

who almost feels like home. It

glides across the skin like a secret

too intimate for language, and

disappears before it can be

caught.

And in that vanishing, it leaves

behind nothing-

except there’s something almost

tenderly rebellious,the quiet

certainty that something was felt.

and that it mattered.