You said it
maybe in a joke,
maybe in anger,
maybe without thinking.
but you said it.

And no matter how fast the apology came,
how quick you tried to laugh it off,
how much you claimed you didn’t mean it,
my heart
heard it anyway.

Words don’t always echo
where you throw them,
they land in people.
in soft spots they never showed you.
They burrow.
They stay.

It was just a joke,
you say,
but it wasn’t funny to the part of me
already wondering if it was true.

It was just heat of the moment,
but the burn still lingers
long after you’ve cooled down.

You may forget,
but I replay it.
quietly,
in the small hours,
wondering if that’s how you really see me
when you’re not trying to be kind.

They say words don’t wound.
but that’s only said
by those who’ve never
bled on the inside.

Because here’s the thing about words,
you can’t unsay them.
You can only hope
the person you said them to
wasn’t already breaking
before you did.