I can’t even say your name.

It withers on my tongue...
like a dying breath.
Like a prayer I never should’ve whispered.
A forbidden word,
a memory buried—
but not deep enough.

I held your secret—
tight,
like a corpse cradled in my ribs.
It pulsed there,
rotting slow,
whispering lies
in a voice that sounded too much like mine.

You told me this…
was healing.
You said:
This is what you need.
You said:
This is love.

And I—
I believed you.
Because I thought love could look like you.
I thought maybe
you saw the part of me
I kept hidden.
The holy part.
The waiting part.

I made a promise once.
To something higher.
Older.
Holier.

To wait.
To be whole.
To offer myself to someone
who could see the soul beneath the skin.

And you…
you made me think
you were that someone.

You said all the right things.
Held me like I was something sacred.
Looked at me
like I was light.

But you—
you didn’t come for the light.
You came for the heat.
The curve.
The body—
not the being.

And when I whispered no…
you didn’t flinch.
When I begged—
please stop…
your hands were deaf.
Your breath—
heavy.
Your need louder than my pain.

I cried.
I shook.
I begged.

You heard me.
You heard everything.
And still—
you stayed.

You stayed
and you took
what was never yours.

You were close—
so close
to the thing you wanted.
And nothing else mattered.

Not my voice.
Not my tears.
Not the sacred vow
I placed in your hands
like a fragile, flickering flame.

You crushed it.
Extinguished it.
And left me in the ash.

And when I came to you—
small,
shattered,
trying to understand how love
could feel like drowning—
I said:

You hurt me.
You took what I never gave.

And you looked at me,
so calm,
so sure,
and said:

Your body said yes.
Your mouth said no, but I knew what you needed.

As if my body was louder than my voice.
As if my begging meant nothing.
As if the pain you caused
was some kind of gift.

You knew.
Don’t pretend you didn’t.
You wore understanding like a mask—
but it slipped, didn’t it?
Right before you did
what can’t be undone.

Now I am silence.
Now I am ruin.
Now I am the echo
of a girl
who once believed in light.

I feel your hands even now—
ghost-hands,
burned into memory.

You forgot me.
I know.
I’m dust to you.
Mist in your rearview.

But you…
you are the grave I wake in.
The scream I cannot voice.
The shadow I drag
through every room,
through every prayer.

I want to forget.
I beg to forget.
I would burn my own name
to forget.

But you haunt me.

Still.
Still.
Still.