Just

Was it the way I held your hand,

Too tight, too eager to belong?

Did my laughter grate your nerves?

That you played on my fatal flaw—

‘Did I imagine it all?’

Ill-fated, unrequited, imagined?

Couldn’t you ‘just’ tell me your mind changed?

I must have been crazy, right?

Hearing voices in my head,

Sweet whispers of words I longed to hear.

So hypnotic, I believed, my heart echoing back—

‘Be mine, be mine … be mine.’

Your kisses, your embrace, that smile,

It ‘just’ felt so real.

How uncomfortable you must have been,

Pinned beneath my affection,

Unable to express how suffocated you felt,

You screamed, desperate, silently—

‘Let me breathe…’

These memories, silken threads spun from longing,

If I could ‘just’ erase each text, each call.

Perhaps your way is justified.

For if they were illusions, I could forget,

Erase the traces of these feelings,

And finally, truly, let go, and yet—

‘Did you say ‘just’?’

The emptiness left behind is excruciating.

It’s not memories but ‘just’ illusions.

Did the stars not feel any pity for me?

Were there no warning signs?

Or did I fall willingly, eyes wide open?

Ignoring all the warning whispers—

‘I fell …’

Forget the world I hope to make mine,

And learn to live like it ‘just’ never happened.