Between Bruises & Blooms

You wrote me a song
called Tomorrow.

That feels crueler now
than anything
you could have named it.

You could have called it
Tonight.

Something temporary.

Something honest
about the way
we existed then—

two damaged people
finding each other
in the dark
and mistaking relief
for forever.

But you called it
Tomorrow.

You wrote about
my voice
quieting your restless soul.

About three in the morning.

About nightmares
and me staying close enough
to remind you
you were still here.

You wrote about
coming home from work
and finding me asleep,

about watching me breathe
instead of waking me.

You imagined whiskey
beside me.

Train tracks.

Years.

Children growing older
while we sat
somewhere together
watching it happen.

You wrote me
into your future
so carefully
I believed
I belonged there.

That is the part
I still don't know
what to do with.

Because monsters
would be easier.

If you had always
been cruel,
I could fold you neatly
into the story
and call you
what you became.

But there was once
a man
who heard my sleepy voice
and wrote music.

A man
who said
I guided him home
through rivers
made of darkness
and bone.

A man
who made tomorrow
sound like somewhere
we were going
together.

I loved that man.

I need that written
somewhere too.

Not because
it excuses
the screaming.

Not because
it dulls
the knives.

Not because
a beautiful song
can resurrect
what violence killed.

But because
I refuse
to rewrite myself
into a fool
for loving you.

There were reasons
I stayed.

There were nights
you were soft.

There were words
that sounded
like promises.

There was music.

There was tomorrow.

Until one day
there wasn't.

And maybe
that's what hurts
about listening now—

knowing you once wrote
about me
guiding you home

while neither of us knew

I would eventually
have to find
my own way
out.