Inheritance worth more than gold

You left nothing of yourself—

no final note,

no unfinished mug on the counter,

not even the trace of your scent

on the pillow beside mine.

Just an absence—

precise, deliberate,

like a surgeon's cut

to remove the part of me

that still believed in forever.

I still make two cups of coffee

out of muscle memory,

though one always cools untouched

by the sunlit window

you once claimed

felt like home.

I've stopped seeking closure.

The truth was never a question—

you loved me,

but only in the margins,

in soft apologies and half-open doors,

never enough to circle back

when leaving became easier

than staying.

When strangers ask if I’ve ever loved,

I smile with practiced ease,

but inside I’m sifting through rubble—

trying to find something beautiful

in what collapsed.

Some nights,

you return in dreams,

wearing regret like a borrowed coat,

mouthing all the words

I ached to hear

before you forgot how to say them.

But morning always arrives—

merciless,

peeling you from my arms

like light from shadow.

I heard you married.

They say she wears her joy

like I wore silence.

That she laughs without apology

and never flinches

when you reach for her.

And still—

I cannot bear the thought

that the children of another man

will inherit the eyes

of the girl I cannot forget.

Let them carry her voice, her grace—

but not those eyes.

They once undressed my soul

without asking,

and that knowing

should have died with us.

So I keep my grief folded,

pressed flat between pages

of books I can no longer finish.

Even memory has grown tired

of being summoned.

And though I would give anything

to stop loving you—

the truth is,

I still do.

Quietly.

In ways you never earned,

and will never know.