Annotations on a Coward’s Chorus

He wrote about me like a eulogy

for a woman he buried alive.

Called it love in past tense

but forgot I survived.

He said he was broken—

a prelude to sin.

As if damage is holy

and excuses the skin.

He paints himself haunted,

tragic and shy.

But you don't need therapy

to learn not to lie.

And I kept receipts

in the back of my mind,

the look in his eyes

every time he declined

to choose me.

To stay.

To be kind.

So I edited his story

with blood-red ink,

tore out the pages

where he made me shrink.

Left a note in the margins—

"Nice try, kid."

He played the poet.

But I lived what he did.

He called me a storm

while he left the match lit,

said I was too much

while he burned every bit.

And maybe he thinks

his verse sounds deep,

but it’s just what a coward

says when he cheats.

You can rhyme your regrets

all you want.

But nothing you write

will make you the one

who stayed.

I annotated your chorus

with everything you skipped—

the silence, the sighs,

the nights I slipped

into doubt

while you crafted your script.

Tell your side,

but don't call it the truth.

I was the poem.

You were the proof.