Your love was a moth’s wing pinned to my chest,

and every beat—

God, it stung.

I’d have swallowed the whole moon for you,

if only to feel something

bigger than the guilt that dripped

from your tongue.

We called it love,

but it was a bloodletting,

your hands always at my throat,

mine always somewhere

I shouldn’t have reached.

Do you remember the park bench,

where you said “forever”

like you meant next Tuesday?

I smiled and said “me too”

because I was too tired to ask

what kind of liar

you wanted me to be.

Somewhere between your cigarette burns

and the bruises I wore

like second skin,

I started naming the stars after all the ways

you could kill me—

mercy was never one of them.

And still, I begged for your touch,

each kiss a noose tightening—

until I forgot the sound of my name

and only knew the echo of yours.

What do you do with a love

that makes you hate yourself?

Do you bury it?

Burn it?

Write it letters it will never read?

I’ve done all three,

and still, it lives in my lungs,

every breath I take

a scream I’ve swallowed whole.

But I’ve learned this much:

there’s no such thing as “almost.”

There’s only the wreckage of what wasn’t

and the ghosts of what could’ve been.

So go.

Take your knives.

Take your half-empty promises

and that grin that could cut glass.

I’ll build a tomb for the girl

who loved you—

the one who thought

she could save you.

She’ll rot there quietly,

her hands folded in prayer,

her mouth full of dirt.

And I’ll walk away this time.

Not because I’m strong,

but because there’s nothing left.

Farewell, my almost lover.