Our course shifted that May night, something I didn’t want to admit—until it was too late. My gut touched my shoulder, whispered to change paths before the road disappeared beneath me. I was young. I was scared. You had been my identity for so long, I wasn’t sure where I ended and you began. You say I left. I say you did too. Somewhere between the swallowed screams, nights we survived on ideals, At the verge of tears when truth pressed too close to my bruises... I should’ve left when I still had it in me. I searched for signs in green buses, in stars, in the silence you wrapped around us, like a coat we didn't dare to take off. hoping it wasn’t real. Somehow, I lack the words to speak. That’s why I haven’t yet. The language I am is foreign. But maybe just once, let this reach you: I would trade my ribs for one last hug Your silence burrows under my skin, settles in the hollows of my bones. I spend my days in analogies, weaving meaning into every stanza, believing t...
I knew it was over before anyone said it out loud. The sirens wailed, but no one ran. Gunshots in broad daylight. Between us, a body bleeds. When it happened, it felt like slow-motion agony. The pistol went off, the sound ringing in my ears. Every dime we ever spent on love hit the pavement, rolling away like scattered pearls. People screamed, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t rise above my biggest fear. They ask what happened. I don’t answer. I just look at your hands, still wet with blood, your breath, still steady. You don’t tremble. You don’t flinch. You just stand there like a man who’s done this before. Both hands on the smoking gun. I tried to save it. Pressed my hands against its chest, counted, begged, whispered prayers between desperate compressions. I swore I felt something—a gasp, a twitch, a sign that I wasn’t too late. So I kept going. Past exhaustion. Past reason. Past the moment you had already given up. You just stood there, watching, like someone who slows down to sight...