Marks that remain.

More than anything I wanted it to be okay
Even at the end, as if a trick, I believed it would.
I carried the weight of vows
like a lantern in daylight—
useless, but still burning,
still stubborn with hope.

I held my breath through silence,
mistook stonewall for a stone altar,
thinking maybe if I bled enough
the cracks would seal.

But the house knew before I did.
The chairs pushed back,
the dishes dried without being touched,
the walls leaned away from each other
Even the bed, wide as a stage,
had learned to rehearse the absence.

It could have changed with you
a single word, a reach of your hand,
the choice was always yours to unmake the ending.
But you walked past me,
eyes forward,
as if my breaking were background noise.

I wanted us to be okay
more than my name, more than my body,
more than the music that raised me.
I would’ve torn pages from my throat
burned every song
just to keep us together.

And yet—
you slipped into the bathwater of your solitude,
and I stayed outside,
listening for a door that never opened.

You’ll cover yours
the way you always do,
rewriting skin to erase the ghosts
But I won’t.
I’ll keep every mark,
every line,
a map of the love I believed in
long after you chose to turn away.

Now I stand in the ash of what was ours,
half-believing, still,
that the trick will turn,
that the curtain will lift,
and you will be there
smiling
as if the ending had been rewritten.