if your silence could speak

the goodbye never came. no slammed door, no final fight, no note left behind. just silence, thick and steady, like fog on a morning you thought would be clear. if silence were a person, it would look like you on that last day. eyes already gone somewhere else. hands in your pockets like they were hiding something. you didn’t even flinch when i said your name.
you just said “goodbye” like it meant nothing. like i meant nothing.

but if silence could speak maybe it would say- maybe it would say i wasn’t enough, or that i was too much in all the wrong places. maybe it would say nothing— because we both know i’d fill the silence with explanations and twist myself into the victim again. i’d make it about me like i always do. i’d say something like “i’m glad you chose yourself this time” trying to sound whole, knowing you’d see through it, like you always do.

and you’d look at me with that quiet pity, the kind that doesn’t soften anything, just makes the goodbye heavier. you wouldn’t correct me. you’d let me spiral, let me perform the heartbreak, because it’s the only language i’ve ever been fluent in.

you would tell me you wish me the best. i would clench my fists, my heart thumping, my soul folding in on itself. the world, as i knew it, breaking open and bleeding out at my feet. you would know every place my mind would go. how i’d spiral. how i’d cry about this to anyone who’d listen. how i’d keep it alive long after you’d buried it. you would know i’d cry on this hill until the sun rose and saw me still there, saw that you had left me behind in the night without even looking back.

but i would do it different this time. i promise i will. i’ll cry and i’ll cry and i’ll break over this a million times but i won’t come back. i won’t follow you into the night searching every shadow for your shape. because i know my love is a lot, but i know it’s whole.

i know i hurt you and i don’t think i’ll ever forgive myself for it. i don’t want to rot here forever, clinging to a ghost.

but the truth is, i will. and you know that. you always knew. you knew me like the back of your hand and still you let go. and i’m sorry. and if your silence could speak, it would say you’re sorry too. not because you want to come back, but because you know this gutted both of us. because you didn’t walk away easily. you didn’t walk away for so long. but now you’re gone, and your silence has grown teeth. it stands where you used to, calm and cruel and sure. sure you’ll be fine. sure this is right. sure i’ll survive.

but i’m not fine. and i’ll never tell you about the arguments i scream at your silence when i can’t sleep. how it never shouts back. how it just stares. how i keep ending up in the part of my brain where we’re still okay. where you still love me. where i can still reach for you without falling through air. i close my eyes and dream in silence, because that’s all i have left of you. 

i cant keep living like, this arguing at a screen, hoping it will say something back like you once used to, but theres nothing there. theres nothing here. youre gone and i cant let go. i miss you and god i am so sorry.