You said forever like it was a thing that had weight to it,
Like the word had mass, like it was something I could press my hand against
And feel the pressure back — I was the fool who’d believe in it,
Who’d lay the whole infrastructure of a life against
The foundation of your word.
I watched you do the thing that practiced liars do:
Hold the eye contact a half-beat past what’s comfortable,
Level the voice at just the right pitch, make the true
Sound obvious and solid and like something workable,
Like betting everything on it would be reasonable —
You were very good at that. You still are, probably.
Broken promises from people who should’ve known better,
Knew exactly what they were doing when they said forever,
Burned the whole agreement to the ground and called it a mistake —
Left me standing in the wreckage of the life we were supposed to make.
You left kind. That’s the part I least know how to carry.
No fight, no accusation, nothing sharp to push against,
Just the measured, reasonable, considered and necessary
Exit — the door held open, the voice present
And honest about its own absence,
The whole thing handled, the whole thing clear.
And I sat there nodding like a man co-signing his erasure
Because what else do you do when the leaving is already here?
You wrote that lesson in my chest where it turned into bone,
The useful kind — the kind that tells you when the person
Standing in front of you and the one you thought you’d known
Have a gap between them, when the tender, certain rendition
Of “I’ll stay” is being spoken more for your benefit
Than for any truth behind it —
You wrote it in the calcium and I feel it every time I sit
Across from someone and they reach across to find it.