Love showed up like a hospital wristband
too tight,
plastic biting the skin,
your name spelled wrong
but still somehow yours.
I didn’t notice at first.
Just a little pressure.
Just a little weight.
Just the quiet beep…
beep…
beep…
of a heart learning a new rhythm.
You laughed once,
head thrown back like the sky owed you something,
and I swear the room got bigger.
Like the walls took a step back
to make room for it.
People say love is soft.
That’s a lie.
Love is gravel in your teeth.
Love is holding someone’s hand
while the fluorescent lights hum overhead
and pretending you’re not counting
every breath they take.
One.
Two.
Three.
Because you know
someday
the counting stops.
And loss
loss is the silence after the machine goes dark.
It’s the way a jacket still hangs on the chair
like a ghost that forgot its lines.
It’s the coffee cup in the sink
with a fingerprint on the handle
you swear you can still feel.
I tried to be brave about it.
Tried to walk it off
like a kid who skinned his knees
in front of the whole playground.
But grief doesn’t walk.
It crawls inside your chest
and builds a small room there
with no windows.
Some nights I sit in that room
and talk to the air like it’s you.
And the wild thing is
the unbearable, stupid, miraculous thing
I’d still do it again.
Every second.
Every bruise.
Every breath I counted in the dark.
Because for a little while
in this broken, fluorescent world
you were here.
And my heart
learned your name
like a prayer
it will never
stop
saying.