Love, Rewritten

We wrote each other in pencil first—

soft lines, easy laughter,

erasable promises on the back of receipts.

Then you started crossing things out:

my late-night honesty,

my too-big questions,

the way I cried during movies.

✁

I did it too.

I trimmed my sentences

So they’d fit your silence.

I learned to smile on cue,

to swallow my “but wait—”

like it was a bad habit.

✁

Soon we were editing in red ink,

margin notes everywhere:

Be less, be nicer, be lighter, be normal.

Our love became a document

passed back and forth,

tracked changes glowing like bruises.

✁

I asked for a happy ending,

You suggested a shorter chapter.

We compromised with “maybe.”

✁

Some nights I reread old versions of us,

The draft where you held my face

like it mattered,

The draft where I trusted you

without checking for the knife.

✁

Now the pages are torn,

And the plot won’t hold.

Still, my hands remember

How to rewrite a person

until there’s almost nothing left

But the edits.