I remember lace —
how it whispered down my spine,
how it clung like a promise
just before it frayed.
I remember music,
a waltz on the wind,
and the way my name
sounded sweeter
when he was near.

They said it was fate.
They said I was lucky.
They never said
he’d run.

The earth was cold
when I fell into it,
not from grace—
but from a man
who knew how to smile
while slipping poison
in a glass of hope.

Always the bridesmaid,
never the bride—
until I became one,
wrapped not in joy
but in silence.

I didn’t walk down an aisle.
I was carried.
Petals didn’t fall;
they rotted.
The bells didn’t ring;
they echoed.

And so I stayed.
In bone and lace,
in a dress made of dust,
a heart stitched shut
so it wouldn’t feel
the beat it lost.

Years passed.
Centuries, perhaps.
Love is timeless,
they say.
But grief?
Grief is patient.
It waits
in the folds of your veil.

Then—
he appeared.
Not the one who broke me,
but the one who saw through me.
Through hollow eyes,
through silent sighs,
through the way my fingers
trembled
when he spoke.

He didn't run.
He didn’t promise either.
But he listened.

And for a moment—
a heartbeat I could almost hear—
I was alive again.
Not in flesh,
but in something softer.
Something that felt
like a maybe.
Like a might-have-been.

But the living
must belong to the living.
And I?
I belong to the soil.
To stories forgotten.
To songs no one sings anymore.

So I stepped aside.
With grace I never had in life.
I let go—
of the dream,
of the dress,
of him.

Because sometimes,
the kindest kind of love
is the kind
that says goodbye.

Still…
as the wind brushes
through my empty chest,
and the stars refuse to warm me,
I wonder—

Tell me, my dear...
how can a heart still break
once it has stopped beating?