I kept all your secrets.
hid them in my clavicle
next to my old poetry and
the night I almost died
but didn’t tell anyone
because it didn’t feel polite.

I never wanted to ruin you.
just wanted to be understood
in the original latin—
to stand in the fire with.
but you mistook the blaze
for a signal flare
and bailed.

I lit candles for you
like a saint or a fool—
same thing, really.
Wrote prayers in the margins
of receipts and prescriptions,
called it hope
because obsession sounded ugly.

Now I write like an arsonist
with nothing left to burn
but the drafts I never sent
and the version of me
who waited
for you to come back
smelling like smoke
but brave.