I will etch your name onto the skin of my soul lest i forget my purpose hereafter

yet again i wake up knowing we've moved apart long ago
that my dream was a reaction of a bygone misfortune
i wish i was there

you've deemed yourself undeserving of my love

i wish i could unmake your past
i wish i could help you
i wish for you to know that you are loved you are worthy of love and the whole world's affection and praise

i wish your parents tried

being alive feels strange sometimes
like i am walking through a story i do not remember writing
pages missing
sentences crossed out by hands that were not mine

some days i wake up heavy
not from sleep
but from the weight of having to begin again
again
and again

i smile like it fits
like i belong here
but most of the time
it feels like pretending
like nodding along to a song i cannot hear

there is a quiet kind of grief in not knowing where you are going
in watching everyone else move like they have a map
while i am just following the cracks in the road
hoping they lead somewhere soft

i am tired
but not the kind that sleep can fix
tired in my bones
in the part of me that used to dream louder
want more
believe deeper

still
i get up
i show up
not because i am strong
but because something in me refuses to go silent

maybe that is enough
maybe that is what survival really looks like
not heroic
not poetic
just continuing
even when the world does not clap for it

loving you feels like standing in the rain
calling out to someone who never turns around
like i am always a few steps behind
always almost reaching you

you never ask me to stay
but you never ask me to leave either
and so i stay
hoping my presence fills the silence you do not know how to speak through

i see you shut down
fold into yourself like a house with no lights on
and i wait outside the door
cold
but willing

sometimes it feels like i give you all my warmth
and watch you wear it like armor
never noticing the chill i am left with

i want to be angry
i want to scream that this is not fair
that love is not meant to feel so lonely
but instead i go quiet
and keep loving you in the only way you seem to allow

and maybe you will never say it
but i think you know
i think you see all that i carry
all that i lose to make space for your silence

and that is enough

we were almost
whatever that means

almost a touch
almost a look held too long
almost something that could’ve saved us

she smiled like nothing hurt
i broke like everything did

i wanted her
like the sky wants its stars back
like hands want what they can’t hold

but she
she never reached
never stayed
never wanted

and i
i loved her knowing
it would end
it had to

some stories
are written only in silence
and some loves
are born just to be lost

there's space in me that doesn't fill
and i can't remember when it started
everything moves around me
but i stay still
waiting for something i can't name

the days blur together
empty
and i wonder if they always felt this long
maybe i'm not meant to feel whole
just to keep going