Between Bruises & Blooms

You said
I almost had you again.

As if I had been
keeping score.

As if every phone call
was strategy.

As if every goodbye
was rehearsal.

You called love
a game
because that made it easier
to believe
than the truth.

The truth was simpler.

I packed boxes
with shaking hands.

I apologized
for things
that weren't mine.

I kept saying
I loved you
long after love
had become
survival.

You wrote
that pain
was reality.

You were right.

But you never understood

that it had become
mine too.

And when you said,

“It feels like a game to you,”

I stared at my phone,
read the words twice,

and answered
with the only truth
I had left.

This has never been a game to me.