Once you looked at me like I was solid ground. Now your eyes slide past like I’m already gone. I held the weight so you could breathe. Carried your storms in my chest so the house stayed standing. And still you turn away when I reach for steady.
Respect used to live in the small things. The way you’d wait for my words. The way your hand found mine without thinking. Now it comes only when it suits you. Like a favor I have to earn again each time. I swallowed the fear of losing you. Let it hollow me out from the inside. Smiled through the ache so you’d stay. But the more I bent, the less you saw me. The less you saw, the less you stayed.
Somewhere between your chaos and my silence, the thing we used to call us is fading. Not gone. Just thinner. Like light through ribs.
I keep reaching even as the ground shifts under me. Even as the door I guard begins to look more like an exit than a promise. And I wonder how long a body can hold what the heart no longer recognizes.
Shattered vein…
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