Confession of the Shattered Heart

You were kind to me

Or so I told myself in the hush between heartbeats.

You wore gentleness like a borrowed cloak,

And I, foolish with longing,

Believed it was woven for me.

You said you understood me

As if my soul were a book you had read in secret,

As if my silences were languages

You alone could speak.

I let you in,

Thinking you entered to stay,

Not merely to pass through.

We shared laughter once;

Small lanterns glowing in the dusk of our days.

We gathered moments like wildflowers,

Pressed between the pages of memory,

Fragile, fragrant, fleeting.

But they were never what you sought.

They were only soft-lit corridors

Leading to a door you desired;

A door you wished to claim

Without knocking,

Without reverence,

Drawn not by my soul

But by the tremor of skin and warmth,

By the quiet fire of wanting;

The desire that looked like love

But never was.

You did not know

That the door opened

But into my heart.

You struck it anyway;

Not with hands,

But with a hunger sharp as iron,

A hammer disguised as affection.

And when it splintered,

You did not hear the sound;

The quiet thunder not able to touch my skin or flesh

But whacked something more sacred.

Now I sift through the ruins,

Picking up each fractured sliver

Like a confession I never wanted to write.

Every piece trembles with your shadows—

Love smudged with betrayal,

Tenderness bruised into memory,

Hate blooming from the wound.

I count them,

One aching shard at a time,

And each one still whispers

Your name;

The name I am trying,

And failing,

To forget.