What We Become Poem by Ferguson Parker

She is the woman I love—not in fleeting moments, but with a stillness that sits deep in my chest, a knowing.
She's not mine—not by lines drawn on paper, not by rules the world enforces. She lives in a space that doesn't serve the fullness of who she is.
And still, she stays. Not from weakness, but necessity. There are reasons, tangled and real, and I understand. I don't need her to rush.
In my depths, I am certain her fire burns too. Not in passing glances or half-spoken words, but in the quiet, deliberate ways that love is spoken without sound.
Her voice softens when my name leaves her lips.
She hangs on my words, like they're the last ones she'll hear.
She reads me like the pages of a novel she penned herself.
Even when she pretends it's only friendship, there's truth in her presence. That truth is sacred, held like the last words I would ever speak.
Our lives carry obstacles, hers as profound as mine.
Nothing is more important than our children. Their safety, their worlds, their structure. We give everything to them while our hearts wander quietly elsewhere, unseen, untangled, shielding them from the wars around us.
I trust the timing. I trust that love is not withheld, only prepared. That we are being readied to hold it fully—for ourselves, and for each other.
This is not impatience; this is becoming. Separately, so we can meet whole.
The roots of something real grow in silence. My vision has never been clearer. She learns strength in her way; I learn mine.
We are becoming the kind of people who won't need to be rescued—only received.
I wake, I protect what's mine, I give the world the best of me, all while carrying the most beautiful secret. That secret comforts me, even when doubt shows itself.
If the love is real—and I know it is—nothing can stand against the story we are writing.
The plan unfolds. Timing will align. And when it does, we will look back and know we didn't miss a thing.
We were being readied for a love that never has to fight to exist; it only had to wait long enough to arrive.
This is what we become.