I carry a pearl pin into my cousin's winter wedding. I leave knowing what someone else receiving the version I built costs me.

I hear your laugh cross my cousin's winter wedding before I see you.

I carry orange peel and candle wax between us when our eyes meet.

I see a pearl pin resting in your palm.

I understand that I need my labor to stop looking like their luck.

I remain beside you as the couples dance begins and you take another hand.

I ask the smallest question with the largest history.

I see your fingers tighten around a pearl pin.

I remember your thumb tracing calm into my wrist.

I resent the body for keeping what the future refused.

I place someone else receiving the version I built between us and ask you not to soften it.

I watch apology gather behind your teeth.

I touch a pearl pin to keep my hands from reaching for you.

I follow your words until they reach what you decided.

I understand the wound when you give them the patience I taught you.

I breathe through the second that rearranges us.

I move toward the empty coatroom because the room has become too small.

I freeze as your palm finds the center of my back.

I let our foreheads nearly touch.

I hold still while your final words gather.

I reach for you inside my cousin's winter wedding, but you give them the patience I taught you.