I remember her
blonde hair kissed by blue,
like she dipped her crown
in the sky
just to feel infinite.

Eyes the color of clear days,
but storms lived there
I just pretended not to drown.

We were a rhythm,
offbeat and breaking,
on again,
off again,
from fifteen to twenty,
I called it love.
She called when bored.

She said I was different
and maybe I was,
because I stayed
when I should’ve run,
believed her
when I shouldn’t have trusted
even the silence.

Two others.
Two names I never wanted to know.
She said they were “mistakes,”
but they both left fingerprints
on the life we tried to grow.

And now she’s married
to one of them.
Has a child
with his name,
while I’m still here
writing poems
just to remember
that I mattered,
once.

Was I never enough?
Or just too much of the wrong kind?
I gave her every soft part of me,
and she taught me
how it feels
to break quietly.

I see photos of them now—
smiling like we never existed.
And I wonder
if she ever thinks of me
when the baby cries,
or when her world gets quiet,
or if she locked me away
in the same box
where she kept all her
guilt.

Either way,
she chose him.
And I’m left
trying not to wonder
why.