We lost the baby
on a Tuesday.
No name, no warning,
just blood, and her crying
in the bathroom,
and me frozen
in the hallway
like a fucking coward.
She called it nature.
I called it punishment.
Neither of us said the truth:
we didn’t know what to do
with all that grief,
so we turned on each other.
I held her after,
but not the right way.
She needed rage,
I gave silence.
She wanted me to scream with her,
I whispered
and checked my phone
when I couldn’t take her breaking anymore.
She said,
“You didn’t care.”
I did.
But I didn’t know how to show it
without falling apart too.
And I thought I had to be the strong one.
What bullshit that was.
We stopped talking.
Started sleeping with our backs turned.
Started looking at each other
like strangers
who shared a secret
too painful to survive.
And yeah,
eventually she left.
Packed her bags like
she was cleaning up a mess
we both made,
but only she had to carry.
We don’t speak now.
I don’t blame her.
I blame the silence,
the shame,
the ghost that never grew,
but still
haunts everything.
I still think about them,
the little one,
and her.
Both gone,
both real,
both things
I couldn’t hold on to.