You Still Live in Parentheses

We never called it love.

That would’ve made the unraveling

too tragic,

too simple.

Instead, we collected time—

in motel lampshades,

deleted voicemails,

half-written apologies

sent at 2:17 a.m.

(Always yours.)

You were a chapter

I kept folding the page on—

dog-eared denial,

just in case the plot circled back.

We were history

disguised as habit.

Ten years,

a decade of “what now?”

answered mostly with silence

and sometimes

a Wednesday.

I carry ghosts you’ll never name.

You carry guilt like a gentleman—

pressed, perfumed,

never discussed

in public.

Now you show up in the margins—

a like on a post,

a glance at a concert,

a name I skip

like a landmine.

No goodbye,

just the slow death

of unanswered texts

and the mutual understanding

that we’re better off

pretending we ended

before we ever began.

You’re still in parentheses,

an aside in my story

I don’t read out loud.

But sometimes,

when the light hits just right,

I remember how we were

too much

for this world—

but never enough

for each other