I remember the tremor in my voice
when old ghosts rose from my throat,
voices of a childhood bruised and hungry.
My father's anger echoing in my marrow,
my mother's tears, a silent hymn of neglect.

He sees me there, a hurricane of pain-
my words sharp as flint, lashing at the calm.
In his eyes, I read confusion and hurt,
the way his shoulders hunch against my storm,
as if bracing the world from my wrath.

He carries a quiet question in his chest:
"Am I enough to hold you when you break?"
His hands unclench and open, trembling,
as though each finger is a promise
to catch the fragments, I might fling.

I'm triggered by the echo of old fights,
and he becomes both shield and mirror-
reflecting my fury back with gentleness,
tender as bread broken in two,
offering himself for my healing.

In the wreckage we kneel-my hands raw,
his palms pressed to mine in prayer.
I feel the weight of his faith press on my scars,
Christ's blood spilling over every cut,
draining poison, making dust into clay.

He whispers Scripture over my tremors:
"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest."
I taste forgiveness in his voice,
a sweetness that threads through my ribs.

He carries more than my pain;
he carries hope-a seed pressed in his palm,
waiting to burst through hardened soil.
I see him kneel not just for me
but for the broken child inside us both.

Together we rise in that chapel of
our living room,
candles flickering prayer across our skin.
He wipes the baptismal tears from
my face,
and I trace the cross on his heart,
knowing redemption lives in our clasped hands.

Duality becomes our refuge-
my broken past meeting his
steadfast grace,
tension melting into holy tension,
tenderness weaving through the seams
of what we thought could never be whole.

In the morning, sunlight lifts our shadows,
and I watch him carry not just my healing
but his own-bearing wounds born of love.
We walk forward, footballs in unison,
singers of mercy, bound by a surer song.