In This Distance, My Grace

Idle Time | July 2025

Some loves aren’t about presence — they’re about endurance.

This piece came to me like a quiet reckoning: a meditation on loving from afar, on patience without expectation, and on the ache of witnessing someone’s pain without reaching to fix it.

“In This Distance, My Grace” is a letter without a date, a vow made in silence, and a reminder that some of the most sacred loves are the ones that never ask for anything in return.

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If I can’t stand beside you in the rain,
then I don’t deserve to embrace your rays.
So from afar is where I accept that
I’ll bear witness to your lustrous ways.
So in this distance is my gift of grace,
so maybe you won’t mask your darkness,
as if when it’d surface I’d run away.

The subtle confessions in the observations
that I would make.
So maybe just write a letter, without an address or date,
so that in your physical absence
I’ll understand all that shaped your ways—
the shadows on your walls,
the monsters beneath your bed,
your hesitancy midst the intimacy,
your thousand apologies at each slight mistake.

If only we met earlier, I could’ve saved you
from all that made you this way—
family members and friends the same.
So maybe your frequent absences
is your particular method of escape,
in hopes to emotionally recalibrate.
So maybe my affection wasn’t the bandaid
you were seeking,
but a painful soul reminder
that you’re deserving of not an intoxicating,
but a healing love—
the tender approach to your
wounds and scars, your first experience,
the many years from your start.

So here I wait, for your return—
be it many moons
or the eventual slow burn.
Even if this candle wick meets its end,
I’ll light another.
Even if our titles change,
I’ll still
be here
to listen.

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Some truths live not in answers, but in the space we hold for others — even in absence. This piece is a quiet offering to that space. For the ones we see clearly, even when they cannot yet see themselves. For the ones we love gently, without demand. May this linger with you like a candle’s last flicker — brief, warm, and unwavering.

-Rich

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