They don’t hold your heart like I do.
They can’t.
They’re just standing in my grave.

I kept everything.
Your voice,
your rhythm,
your name on my skin,
the way your love tastes
like a secret no one else deserves.

I don’t need to be near
to be close.
You’re still here-
in my quiet,
in my knowing,
in the version of you
I never will share.

If you had died-
because of what I said,
what I didn’t say,
what I became
when you needed softness and I turned to steel-
I swear
I wouldn’t be writing this.
I’d be gone too….

Not out of love.
Out of guilt.
The kind that climbs your spine
like a noose learning your name.

I replay it every second-
your silence,
the hours you vanished into,
the stillness I didn’t recognize
until I imagined you cold.

My hands,
these stupid hands,
could’ve held you.
But they threw the match instead.

I dream of your name
stitched into hospital linen,
and it guts me.
Because if you had slipped away-
for real-
I’d be carving apologies into my skin
just to feel the pain
you almost drowned in.

I’d rather bleed than breathe
if it meant you’d never felt that alone.

But you stayed.
God, you stayed.
And now I’m here
with this monster in my mouth
named regret,
and a thousand I’m sorrys
that don’t resurrect a single thing.

If you ever leave again,
don’t let it be like that.
Don’t let me be the reason
your story almost ended.

How can I ever live with myself?
I can not.

I didn’t mean to cut so deep-
but the words came sharp,
and your silence bled.

Now I carry the guilt
like a dagger under the tongue,
metal-tasting,
too holy to throw away,
too cruel to forget.

If I could sew you whole
with my hands,
I would.

I smile like stained glass-
fractured, lit from behind,
but never whole.

No one hears the weeping
that happens beneath the bone.
It’s quieter that way.

I reach for you
out of habit,
and touch only the dust
where love used to live.

But the quiet we left behind
stays.
And stays.
And stays.

Come back when your soul is whole again,
I’ll be here, a sacred flame unwavering,
waiting to baptize you in my love,
to heal the scars that time could not erase.

In this holy waiting,
my devotion is both prayer and promise -
that you are never lost, only becoming
the saint I have always known you to be.