It hurts—my heart, a red bruise swelling beneath my skin,
tight like a scream trapped in the throat of a dream.
It coils in the ribcage,
a beast pacing, pacing,
snarling at the hollow where your name once curled,
like smoke after rain.
It hurts—my soul,
like a flame-colored leaf,
falling in the middle of summer,
out of season,
out of place,
spun by winds that shouldn’t exist—
winds made of goodbye,
made of breath you took,
but never gave back.
It drifts through me,
this ache.
It rustles in quiet moments,
where joy used to stretch and bloom—
now all is wilt,
and I’m soil that can’t forget
the roots you left behind.
It hurts—my body,
a tired shrine of unspoken touch.
My spine curves with the weight
of what-ifs and unfinished dances,
a question mark bent beneath memory.
My hands still reach in my shallow slumber
for a body that never stayed,
to trace the shape of a face
too fleeting to be drawn.
It hurts—my voice,
once a river
rising toward the sound of you.
It sang you into sky,
into music,
into streets we never walked.
I wanted to sing with you,
under flickering street lamps,
wrapped in your warmth,
like a scarf against the cold.
Now my voice breaks,
on the edge of notes unsung.
It trembles in silence,
a violin left in the rain.
It hurts-
because I believed in our duet.
Because I saw our names
woven into wind,
into breath,
into the trembling pause
before a kiss.
Now—the rhythm is fractured.
The metronome is broken.
The dance is over.
And the clouds?
They are no longer waiting.
They fall—not as softness,
but as grief.
It hurts because it mattered.
Because you mattered.
Because when I loved,
I loved with my entirety—
heart, soul, body, voice—
and you left them all singing
to a silence
too wide
to carry home.
