The Pendulum

I loved you like the tide greets the shore, with ceaseless hunger, crashing, only to retreat in silence, leaving the sand to wonder if the waves ever meant to stay. You loved me like the moon commands the tide, distant, deliberate, pulling at my depths. Your presence was felt but never fully seen, a force that moved without touch, steady as the stars, untouched by the chaos below. I spoke first, my words stumbling like fledglings leaping from trembling branches, seeking the sky of your reply. But your silence was a mirror, reflecting my own voice back at me, until I became unsure if it was love or loneliness I had been calling out to. I reached for you in the dark, a hand extended toward the void, but found only the weight of my own longing. You waited, still as stone, for the proof of my persistence. Were you testing my devotion, or simply afraid to move? The pendulum swings between us, each arc a question: Do I chase, or do I wait? Do I burn like fire, or hold like the moth circling it? Are you the still pond, or the ripple waiting to be stirred? And yet, in the quiet moments, between the swing of pursuit and retreat, I see it clearly. Neither the tide nor the moon can exist without the other. The answer lies not in the motion, but in the stillness between, where love does not chase or wait, but simply is. 23 January 2025