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the day they carried
Folder:
bridging poems
The Day They Carried
Morning widened around them,
soft gold on their shoulders,
the ridge behind them holding
what they could not yet name.
They walked down separate tracks
toward the lives waiting for them —
schoolbags, chores, the usual noise —
yet something in their steps
kept time with the other’s.
The faun did not follow,
but its presence clung like warmth
after a fire has burned low,
a reminder in the chest
that the night had changed them.
Each boy felt it differently.
One held the memory close,
turning it over like a stone
warmed by the sun —
a secret that steadied him
when the day grew loud.
The other carried it like a pulse
beneath his ribs,
a quiet rumbling that rose
whenever he paused long enough
to feel it.
They did not speak at first.
Words felt too small,
too sharp for something
that had moved through them
like weather.
But when they met again —
behind the shed,
near the creek,
on the walk home —
their eyes found each other
with a new, unguarded ease.
The faun’s influence lingered
in the way they stood,
in the way their shoulders angled
as if remembering the dance,
in the way silence between them
felt full rather than empty.
Eventually, the words came.
First alone —
each boy whispering the truth
into the quiet of his own room,
trying to understand
how a moment could feel
both wild and gentle.
Then to each other —
halting at first,
then with a rush of relief
as they realised
the other had felt it too.
Later still,
to those who could listen
without judgement —
a cousin, a friend,
someone who knew
what it meant
to stand on the edge of becoming.
They never spoke of the faun directly,
yet both felt its presence
whenever they met —
a soft pressure in the air,
a reminder that some bonds
are shaped by more than choice.
And so they moved through their days
as two separate lives,
yet tethered by something
older than language,
stronger than fear,
and gentle enough
to let them grow.
.
