Between Bruises & Blooms

I’m sorry

for the day
our conversation
stopped sounding like friendship

and started sounding
like sirens.

I’m sorry
that every message I sent
carried another piece
of a world
neither of us wanted
to believe existed.

You kept asking questions.

Not because you doubted me.

Because you loved someone
you weren’t ready
to lose.

I kept answering.

Not because I knew everything.

Because silence
felt heavier
than uncertainty.

Between missed phone calls,
Facebook messages,
and desperate searches
for a number
that would finally answer,

we weren’t arguing.

We were hoping.

You told me,

“I will never so easily believe the worst
of the people I love.”

I have carried those words
ever since.

Because maybe
that’s what love is—

holding the door open
for truth,

even when fear
is already inside the house.

If I could apologize
for anything,

it wouldn’t be
for telling you.

It would be

for the fact
that I was the one
who had to.

I wish
the messages we’d shared
had been about Christmas.

About the kids.

About ordinary days.

Instead,

we spent them
trying to find someone
before the silence
found him first.

And through all of it,

you still ended
the conversation

with love.

I hope you always know

I never wanted
to give you
another reason to cry.

I only wanted to make sure

you weren’t crying

alone.