Dudes

Dudes ask,
“what’s up?”
like the sky isn’t always empty.

I say,
nothing—literally,
because silence feels safer than truth.

Dudes say,
“let’s kick it,”
like time isn’t something I’ve already buried.

I ask,
why?

They promise,
“I’ll show you what you’ve been missing,”
as if I haven’t already lost enough
to know better.

I say,
what’s there to see
in something that fades the moment it begins?

They insist,
“come and I’ll show you,”
but I can already see it—
another echo,
another almost,
another exit wound.

I answer,
a waste of time,
because I’ve learned how endings feel
before they start.

They laugh,
“I’ll make you fall in love—
or break your heart.”

I tell them,
you’re a joke,
because my heart
is already in pieces
no one bothered to pick up.

They say,
“you’re the issue.”

And maybe I am—
a locked door,
a warning sign,
a place love doesn’t survive.

I shrug,
I told you I wasn’t ready,
but they hear challenge,
not truth.

They ask,
“why do you still respond?”

Because habit is a ghost
that keeps answering for me.

They call me
needy.

I say no—
I just don’t ignore the noise
when it knocks.

They ask,
“why do you keep going?”

Because I’m still here,
and sometimes existing
is the only answer I have.

They remind me,
“you don’t want anything to do with me.”

And they’re right—
but that doesn’t make them nothing.
Just… not mine.

They say,
“you’re weird.”

I say,
thank you,

because strange things survive
in places
ordinary things don’t.

The end.

Exes

 They don’t haunt me like ghosts.

Ghosts are honest.
They knock things over.
They moan.

You’re more like mold—
silent, patient,
thriving in the corners of rooms
I forgot to air out.

I loved you the way people love matches:
knowing fire is the point,
pretending surprise when the house remembers.

You left fingerprints on my throat
made entirely of apologies.
Every time I breathe too deeply,
I taste you—
rust and old promises.

We said we’re still friends,
which is just another way of saying
the knife stayed in,
and we agreed not to mention the blood.

Sometimes I catch myself missing you,
then realize
I miss the person I was
before I learned how replaceable I am.

You’re doing well now.
I know because the universe
has a sick sense of humor
and keeps forwarding me the memo.

I don’t wish you pain.
Pain ends.

I wish you the slow realization
that everyone you love next
will someday look at you
and feel tired
for reasons they can’t explain.

That’s what you gave me.
A fatigue with your name on it.

And I carry it quietly—
like a curse that learned my routine
and decided to stay.

Pain, past

 

Seeing you hurts—
not loud, not sudden,
just a slow collapse inside my chest.

Pain leaks from places I never named,
problems buried so deep
even hope won’t dig for them anymore.

I fall into the abyss,
where no one stays,
where even obsession gives up
and lets me disappear.

Hearing you say you don’t care breaks something permanent.
Hearing you say you don’t love empties the room.
Hearing you say you’re not okay
carves guilt into my bones.

I say I’m okay.
It’s a lie I learned to survive.
You are not.

If karma is real, let it circle me.
Let it take its time.
I will pay for every way I hurt you.

I erase my plans.
I erase myself from places I once belonged.
I try to learn self-love,
but it feels like touching a wound
and calling it healing.

Poetry fails me here—
language breaks under the weight of this.
Nothing is clear.
Nothing is gentle.

Still, they say you will be okay.

And I will exist—
with or without you,
with or without anyone—
not healed, not whole,
just breathing.

If there is a gift in all of this,
it is not happiness.
It is endurance.
It is life,
unapologetic and cruel,
refusing to let me go.

Decision

Call it a decision.
Call it reckless.
Call it the quiet cruelty of choosing yourself.

I left so you could breathe easier—
though my lungs collapsed in the leaving.

You never understood.
Truthfully, neither did I.
I only knew the sound of my own silence
as I swallowed fear like broken glass.

That day I buried
my wishes,
my plans,
my fragile little futures—
and a piece of my heart that still had your name on it.

Perhaps we could have been something vast.
A life.
A world.

Or perhaps you had already departed
long before my body followed,
and all you needed
was for me to pretend
it was mercy.

I said I was okay.

I lied.

Now I watch you from the quiet side of memory—
you look lighter,
happier,
as if the storm left with me.

So yes,
the decision was right.

I chose the ending for both of us.

The pain is gone now, mostly.
What remains is a strange stillness—
a place where hope used to grow.

Sometimes I wander there
and ask the ghosts:
why,
how,
what if.

But I do not let hope answer.

My decision was final.
Do not mistake my silence for waiting.

I forgave you.
But memory is a scar that refuses to fade.

Still, I do not suffer the way I once did.
I do not pretend love beside another body.

Instead I sit with myself
in the dim corners of my own mind,
crying quietly
until the night loosens its grip.

For now, that is enough.

I will learn to save myself.
To love myself.
To defend what remains.

The choice I made
was the best one for us.

You’re welcome.

A Table For Two

I sit at a table carved for two,
though three chairs breathe in its shadow.
One stands empty —
not from absence,
but from permission.

The invitation once cost nothing.
Now it is written in ash.

I am the head of this table —
not crowned,
but claimed.
My blood sits at the other end,
anchored there like scripture etched in stone.
That seat is eternal.
It does not tremble.

You said you would stop coming —
that eyes upon us drew a line in the sand,
that whispers built walls between us.
You feared the crossing.

Hurt me?
No.
I have swallowed worse than goodbye.

I wear my place like armor,
polished with sacrifice.
But wound my pride —
wound what I guard —
and mercy becomes a language I forget.

When you spoke,
you spoke past me,
yet saw him.
And the tears that fell
were never mine —
they belonged to the one
I would bleed for without question.

You said farewell
while I held the door wide,
hinges crying in protest.

You will not be summoned back.
Not by me.

You chose the leaving.
So if footsteps echo here again,
they will be yours —
hesitant,
uninvited,
waiting for a seat
that may no longer be there