The Hourglass We Buried in Shards

We planted our vows in a glass jar,

watched them sprout thorns through the cracks,

each I love you a thornbush

choking the breath from our maps.

Your voice became a rumor in the walls—

a hum of static, half a dial tone.

I traced your silhouette in the dust,

but the wind rewrote every bone.

We were archaeologists of ruin,

digging for fossils in ash:

your laugh, a shattered vase;

my hands, the glue that wouldn’t last.

You left a symphony in the silence—

keys of rain on an untuned piano,

a metronome counting the beats

between almost and never again, though.

Love, we were origami swans

folded from grocery lists and missed calls,

creased by the weight of unsent texts,

drowning in puddles when the monsoon falls.

Now I find your ghost in the coffee steam,

a hologram of steam and if.

The fridge still hums your favorite song—

remember when is a splintered glyph.

We buried the hourglass at midnight,

grains of time still stinging our eyes.

But the shards keep singing of a half-moon dawn

where even endings wear disguise.