The Quiet Between Footsteps

He moves through the evening like

someone who has learned to 

apologize for existing.

Not in words he rarely uses 

those

but in the way his shoulders fold 

inward,

in the way he keeps to the edges of pavements,

in the way he lets the world pass 

first as though it has more right to 

the road than he does.

The sky is the colour of old bruises.

Clouds drift like slow thoughts.

He walks beneath them,

hands buried in pockets that have 

held more secrets than warmth.

His breath ghosts in front of him,

a small proof that he is still here,

still trying.

He listens as he walks.

Not for danger though he knows 

that too but for the echo of 

something he once trusted.

A voice.

A promise.

A softness he can’t quite remember

but still aches for in the hollow of 

his ribs.

Every few steps he pauses,

as if the night might finally answer 

him.

He passes houses where laughter 

leaks

through thin curtains,

where silhouettes move in easy 

patterns

he has never learned.

He imagines the warmth inside

the clatter of plates,

the hum of a kettle,

the small arguments that end

with someone touching someone 

else’s arm.

He keeps walking.

He has never known how to stand 

still in front of a life he cannot 

enter.

A street-light flickers overhead,

buzzing like a tired thought.

He steps into its glow

and for a moment he is

illuminated

a figure caught between leaving

and arriving,

between wanting and refusing to 

want.

Then the light steadies,

and he slips back into the dark

as though it has been waiting for 

him.

Cars pass.

A cyclist swerves around him.

A couple crosses the road,

their hands brushing,

their laughter soft and private.

He lowers his gaze.

He has learned that looking too

long at tenderness can feel like

trespassing.

He turns down a quieter street,

one lined with hedges that whisper

when the wind moves through

them.

He counts his steps without

meaning to.

One, two, three

a rhythm he clings to

when his thoughts begin to fray.

Between each number

there is a space where he wonders

what it would feel like

to walk without carrying himself

like a fragile thing.

He remembers being small,

sitting on the floor while voices

rose above him,

learning the art of stillness

as though it were survival.

He learned then

that silence could be Armour,

that quiet could be a shield,

that disappearing could be a kind

of safety.

He has never quite unlearned it.

Now, as he walks,

he feels that old quiet trailing him

a shadow that knows his name,

a companion he never invited

but cannot shake.

It settles between his footsteps,

in the thin air he moves through,

in the spaces where other people

might place hope.

He stops at a corner,

looks up at a window glowing gold

with someone else’s evening.

For a moment he lets himself

imagine

a life where he is not always outside

looking in.

A life where someone waits for him,

where footsteps behind him

mean belonging instead of threat.

The thought is too tender.

He lets it go.

He starts walking again,

slower now,

as if each step is a question

he is afraid to ask.

The night folds around him,

soft in places, sharp in others.

He moves through it carefully,

carrying the weight of everything

he has never said aloud.

And in the quiet between his

footsteps

that fragile, trembling pause

he feels the truth he cannot escape:

he is still learning how to be a

person

who deserves to take up space,

still learning how to walk

without apologizing for the sound

he makes,

still learning how to exist

without shrinking.

The road stretches ahead,

dark and uncertain.

He follows it anyway.

Not because he knows where it

leads,

but because something in him

small, stubborn, still alive

believes that one day

the quiet between his footsteps

might soften into something like

peace.