Between Bruises & Blooms

Some fictional deaths
never actually happen

and somehow
I still mourn them.

Rhys closed his eyes
and for a few terrible pages
the whole world
went quiet.

I knew
there were books left.

I knew
stories rarely kill
the man
they spent that long
teaching us to love.

But grief
doesn't wait
for logic.

It just arrives.

Fast.

Animal.

Certain.

And suddenly
I am crying
over a man
made of ink
and night,

begging a fictional universe
to give him back.

Maybe that is
the cruelest trick
stories play—

they convince you
someone is alive

before reminding you
they never were.

And still,

when they almost leave,

my heart
does not know
the difference.