You shove me aside
like I’m static,
like trash on the curb,
You walk away slow,
look at me like I’m
something disturbed.
When I reach for your space,
for the air that you guard,
You shrink me to nothing,
make my breathing feel hard.
You make me feel small,
like I never had worth,
Like the blood and the sweat
and the tears on this earth
Were a dream I imagined,
a lie I rehearsed,
Something I chased,
but you buried it first.
And I look at your face,
see the dark underneath,
See the rot in the quiet,
the lies in your teeth.
See the damage you carry,
you never confess,
Still I memorized versions
of you at your best.
I learned all your storms,
every mood, every sign,
Learned when to stay quiet,
learned when to decline
My own needs,
my own voice,
my own right to exist,
Just to keep you from leaving,
just to keep what we had fixed.
No matter what you do,
no matter what you say,
I still hold you in pieces
I carry each day.
No matter who you choose,
who replaces my place,
Even the ones who knew you
in your years gone astray.
I would still make sure
you’re smiling,
I swear it’s true,
Even if smiling means
living without me and you.
Even if loving you
costs me my name,
Even if I’m the sacrifice
nobody claims.
I’d walk myself out,
watch your joy from afar,
Stand quiet in shadows
so you never see scars.
I’d learn how to vanish,
how to take up less space,
Just to keep you from feeling
an ounce of my pain.
No matter how hard
you shove me away,
No matter how long
your words choose to stay.
They stick to my bones,
they rattle,
they bruise,
They echo at night
when I’ve nothing to lose.
Still I show up gentle.
Still I don’t choose
To let you freeze
when the nights turn old.
I’d pull blankets to your chin
when your hands shake cold,
I’d be there in silence,
I’d be there unseen,
I’d stay even knowing
I never would win.
Because love taught me patience
that bordered on grief,
Taught me how to bleed quiet,
how to beg underneath
Every apology
I never received,
Every promise I swallowed
so you could breathe.
No matter the nights
when I cry till I ache,
If the call came at midnight
and said you were gone,
I would break.
I would still fall apart.
I would still lose my breath.
If your name turned to silence,
if you slipped into past tense,
I would wish I could rewind
to you hating my face,
To you walking away,
to abandonment’s taste.
I’d wish for the days
when you didn’t pretend,
When you never stayed long enough
to defend
The version of you
that I wanted to save,
The lie that I loved,
not the truth that you gave.
Because even when you hurt me,
even when you never cared,
That softness I needed
was never quite there.
Still I’d cry through the anger,
the fire,
the spite,
If the world kept on spinning
without you in sight.
The tears would still burn,
carve the truth in my skin,
Because I miss the future
I pictured us in.
The dream where you laughed,
where you stayed just for me,
Where you smiled
instead of teaching me grief.
That’s the ghost that I mourn,
and I hate it,
it’s true.
Because I wouldn’t cry
for the damage you do.
I would cry for the person
who made life feel light,
But that wasn’t you.
Not once.
Not that night.
Still, if one day a voice said
you’re not here anymore,
I’d still slam my door,
still collapse on the floor.
And I don’t know the reason,
I don’t know the why,
Why love outlives harm,
why the wound won’t run dry.
No matter how many tears
fall and stay,
No matter how much of me
wastes away,
I cling to the part
that was never real,
The softness I held
though it cut me to feel.
If you died,
I would still cry.