Not after I have felt the shape of your soul,
Not after I have traced the map of your body,
Not after I have known what it is to be whole.
For I have lived without you,
And it was not life—it was the shadow of a breath,
The echo of a heart that once beat.
If the streams of water take you away,
If I wake to a world where your voice is only a memory,
If the sunrise spills gold over an empty bed,
If the ocean roars and you do not hear it—
Then let it swallow me whole.
Let the waves pull me under,
Let the current take me where you are.
I don’t want to be old and gray without you.
I don’t want to be a ghost wandering through years
That were never meant to be lived alone.
I don’t want to breathe air
That does not belong to the same sky you stand beneath.
I don’t want to walk this world
Where you are nothing more than an absence.
I will never love another.
The time we had was a borrowed dream,
A fragile thing made of salt and sky,
Of whispered laughter between waves,
Of hands pressed together in the dark,
Of love too deep to speak aloud.
I ran from you once.
I was afraid of the fire we built,
Afraid of the weight of loving you.
But I burned in your absence.
