Between Bruises and Blooms

You kept the songs.

The ones you swore were written for me.

Now you sing them to strangers,

call them new,

pretend they were never mine.

But here’s the thing about songs—

they remember who they were written for.

Every lyric still knows whose kitchen it was born in.

Whose tears fell between the verses.

Whose name was removed

without changing the truth.

You can give our melody to someone else.

You can change the dedication.

You can change the audience.

You can even convince them

that they’re hearing a love song written yesterday.

But I know

that somewhere beneath every note

is a ghost

of the woman

who believed you meant it.