Photo Credit: Yunxi Shi

The Hummingbird’s Secret

We flit swiftly around each other like blind hummingbirds, pretending we can’t see the longing in our quivering mouths.

Quick, breathless glances, relieved to see each other, as though we’ve traveled through worlds of agonizing distance and time apart, now locked like a neuron perfectly into a synapse, only to again move away deftly, as leaves distracted by an abrupt and heavy wind.

But we know it’s all a masquerade, our catlike pivot as we strain to unlock the sanctuary of each other’s gaze, turning on an unwilling pause and away from what we’re drawn to, because what we long for will spiral into a rippling shatter, a cascade of pain.