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at the brink
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bridging poems
at the brink
Dawn rose slow along the ridge,
a pale fire brushing their bare shoulders,
the kind of light that makes the world
feel newly made and watching.
They stood close enough
that the warmth of one
shaped the breath of the other.
A fraction of a hair’s breadth
held them apart,
yet the space between them
felt bright enough to burn.
Their chests rose high,
falling in uneven waves,
each breath catching on the next
as if their bodies were learning
a shared rhythm.
The scent of night still clung to them —
grass, sweat, the faint wild musk
of boys who had moved together
in circles until the world
had narrowed to this.
The faun lingered at their backs,
not touching,
but its presence pressed the air
into something living,
something that urged them
toward the brink of knowing.
One leaned in,
the other answered,
foreheads meeting first,
then the soft brush of noses,
a union not of mouths
but of being —
a joining that felt older
than anything they could frame.
Their bodies trembled
with the weight of nearness,
heat rising through them
like sap through a tree at Spring,
a swelling of something
that sought release
not in action
but in recognition.
The moment crested —
a breath held too long,
a pulse of light behind the eyes,
a tightening in the core
that felt like the world
drawing itself inward.
And then it broke —
not with touch,
not with crossing,
but with a shuddering exhale
that left them unsteady,
as if something essential
had spilled out of them
into the morning air.
The faun stepped back,
satisfied,
and the dawn widened around them,
two boys standing bare
in the afterglow
of a threshold they had reached
but not crossed, and
changed all the same.
.
