The Prettier Story

You were my favorite ache,
a wound I wore like cologne,
pulling pain from petals like daisy chains
she loves me, she loves me not,
again and again
until love bled out between the lines.

Don’t be surprised if you find me dead today
not bones not breathless,
but the kind of dead that still walks,
smiling at strangers,
forgetting where it all began.
I swore to love you till I die,
Funny how vows rot before people do.

And then one day,
your smile didn’t light up the room anymore
it flickered like a streetlamp
no one noticed had gone out.
Just another silhouette
drowned in the noise of a crowded room.

You are now the song
I’ve forgotten the melody to
once an anthem,
now background static.

I found peace in your absence.
Not the kind that arrives with trumpets,
but soft,
like a door that stops creaking.

Even the most beautiful flowers die.
And I buried ours without a name,
without a headstone.

You were my pot of water,
small and boiling.
But I found the lake
vast, still, and mine.

The greatest moment of my life
was the day my heart
released you
forever
and began beating
not for you,
not for revenge,
not for what could’ve been
but for itself.

And healing
God,
healing
was the prettier story all along.