I can't seem to wash you off my skin.
Yours accidentally touched mine.
As shadows fall onto the eclipse,
my heart turns into a landmine.

Exhausted it lays, beating faster,
whenever you're on my mind.
Breaths, drawn in sharper,
I can't seem to shut you out.

It's ridiculous, I say to myself,
the power you have on me.
Thoughts of you send splinters
throughout every inch of my body.

Your presence itself feels like a sin.
you're all I think about.
My wishes, never leaving my lips,
could cause the stars to burn out.

It all weighs heavy on my chest,
like ruins no one came to save.
So I leave it there—forgotten, rotting—
just wishful thinking
digging its own grave.

The quiet ache in the pit
is not only because I want you
but because a part of me recognizes
that it needs you.

Your eyes will never know me
but mine softly glow for you
as undying emeralds
cut from your light.

i ask him
what’s wrong

i tell him i’m here
that i will always support him
and the silence stretches
like fabric
thinned by too many washes,
too many wears

i say
i want to be there
but maybe the door is locked
or maybe it’s not a door at all
just a wall
painted to look like one

sometimes
i feel like a ghost in his world
hovering,
wishing he’d see me
noticing how often i check
if he saw
if he’s there
if i still matter

funny
how love turns your ribs into cages
and makes you ask questions
you hate yourself for asking

like
does he think of someone else
does he laugh harder
with someone else
does he hold
someone else closer
even when no one is touching him
does someone else make him
the happiest boy

he once said
i was too much
too close
too everything

and i try to be less
to shrink,
to vanish at the right times
but it still hurts
when he disappears before i do

there are gaps in our messages
and i read them
like tea leaves,
like grief,
like maybe he’s just tired
or maybe he’s tired of me

but still
i would sit in silence forever
if it meant he didn’t have to hurt alone
if it made him
the happiest boy

and i would leave his life
you know,
i would go in a breath
if it made him
the happiest boy

if it meant
he wouldn’t feel the way he does now
whatever way that is
whatever ache he won’t name

but i wish he’d let me stay
and i wish he’d tell me
and i wish i knew
whether i’m still
someone he’d wish to stay too

because even through all this
he is still the one
i would choose to care for
over and over again
even if it leaves me
nowhere at all

you spoke with your back turned
like nothing was wrong
the kettle sat screaming
its blistering song

your eyes crack with thunder
I don’t look away.
I taste every stormcloud
and swallow the rain

you asked if I loved you
then smirked at the floor
i said it too slowly,
you moved for the door

We fought in the hallway,
half whisper, half snarl.
Your silence more cutting
than anything sharp.

you find every fracture
then press where it stings
You say, “it’s devotion,”
and tighten the strings.

We moved like a secret
too brutal for light—
no prayer, just breathing
breaks open the night.

Your hands then remember
what you never confessed,
you kiss where you hurt me
and ask for the rest.

but still, when you’re shaking,
and all fury’s gone,
I gather your pieces
and whisper a song

I stitched up the silence
you gave me to keep
and rocked us together
til sorrow found sleep

We curled in the ash
what didn’t survive,
and found even ruin
leaves something alive.

my love for you was unconditional.
your name engraved itself in my heart,
embedded itself into my soul.
loving you came naturally,
as if I were made solely to love you.

but you
you had your terms and conditions.
you would love me
so long as it was easy.
your heart never ached for my warmth.
and when the time came,
you let go
without hesitation.

for you,
I would have always tried.
always fought for us.
always stayed.

for me,
you had your limits
and I exceeded
your terms and conditions.

I was born from the absence. Each door shut with a lock, a mirror reflecting back, and the quiet of the room becoming a verdict of my time. So I begin to orbit around like a moon, grasping for gravity just to stay near. I beg for pull, the proof that I still matter, even when I’m not in the room. I ask more questions than a survey. Not because I’m trying to pry, but because I’m throwing my anchor overboard. Stitching myself into the moments between us, before even the moment itself forgets it existed. And yet, I still notice. The shifts you make beneath my weight. The way the joy across your face tightens when I ask once more, Where have you been? Who all was there? What was I not included in? It’s as if smoke is filling my lungs, and I blame the room if it slips through. I want to know all that I can, because once, I knew nothing. And that nothingness hollowed me out, left me so quiet I echo when I’m left alone in the silence for too long. I see how I steal your breath when you try to breathe. How your time gets stretched thin by my persistent questions, my mere presence,
this velvet desperation for belonging so complete you’ll forget I ever even asked. But I’ll probably still ask. I always seem to ask. Because when I think of it, if I’m not fully part of the moment, was I ever really there?

i miss you badly

though we’re just friends
for the music plays
it’s you who i remember
and without you — empty
the song echoes — loudly
aching, and gasping for
— you
i wish just a minute of a presence
so i could say my day’s complete