Elegy for an Unwritten Story

I kept you at arm’s length,

like I had all the time in the world

to circle back.

But time isn’t kind—

it doesn’t wait, it steals.

You were steady hands, an open door,

and I was too quick with clever exits.

I thought love could survive the pause,

but silence can be permanent.

Now the book’s closed,

your name pressed on someone else’s cover.

The vows I never spoke

are written in her story instead.

And still—

you’re the love I couldn’t hold,

the almost that ruins the after.

If fate is a cruel editor,

she cut too much too soon.

Because I see it now—

you weren’t just a page,

you were the story.

And when the world goes quiet,

I trace the ending I erased.

The heart doesn’t rhyme

the way the head commands—

but even now, it whispers your name

like a refrain I never learned to finish.