I Walked Away

You were a Sunday after rain,

Windows open, light on skin.

I traced your name in steam and then

I let the silence let me in.

Your coffee laughed against the spoon,

The future warmed the kitchen tile,

I kissed your shoulder like a tune,

Then walked away before the smile.

And I carried quiet like a ring,

A small, bright circle on my tongue—

All the truths I didn’t bring,

All the songs I left unsung.

I walked away from what might have been,

From a room where my heart could breathe,

To stand beneath a borrowed sky and say

Something that was never meant to be.

“Forever” trembled, thin as lace,

A vow that didn’t fit my teeth—

I walked away from what might have been

To say something that was never meant to be.

The aisle was long as winter streets,

Petals fell like breaking news,

Your name kept tapping in my chest,

A rhythm I could not refuse.

I said the words they dressed me in,

A suit of sound, a stitched-up plea,

And every echo, every grin,

Was just a ghost of you and me.

If timing is a gentle lie,

Then I was everything it’s not—

I held my breath as life passed by,

And signed my name beneath the wrong plot.

I walked away from what might have been,

From your laugh on my sleeping sleeve,

To promise hands that felt like gloves,

To plant a flag I’d never leave.

“Forever” tasted sweet and strange,

Like sugar melted into grief—

I walked away from what might have been

To say something that was never meant to be.

But in the nights the vows turn loose,

And drift like lanterns down a stream,

I watch them float toward your roof,

And wonder if you felt the same.

In some soft world of almosts met,

I turn, you look, and we both see—

I say your name instead of “yes,”

And everything becomes a key.

Until that life can find our door,

I keep the truth inside my sleeve—

I walked away from what might have been

To say something I can’t believe.

And if the morning makes me brave,

I’ll walk back through that memory—

Unlearn the words that weren’t for me,

And say the love we meant to be.