She Didn’t Do It, But I Did

It was the third button down that betrayed her,

glinting like a lie beneath candlelight,

trembling in rhythm with the clock she never wound,

the pocket watch tucked beneath her lace vow and the ache she wouldn't name.

The scroll had no ink but plenty of meaning,

a contract signed in the scent of despair and sealed with wax that smelled too much like regret,

and I, who bartered love for velvet coin and traded names for masks,

I watched her drown without water,

watched her float through the ballroom with that practiced tilt of the head

that made even the chandeliers lean in with pity.

They said she did it,

said the blood on her hem sang like truth,

but I knew better because I’d taught her how to smile with her whole body

while the soul shrivelled politely underneath.

I sold her story before she ever lived it,

marked up by a percentage only guilt could calculate,

and now I wear her innocence like a waistcoat stitched from silk apologies,

heavy at the seams,

light in the pocket,

pretending not to care

while the mask grows heavier

with every tick she never heard.