what drowns doesn’t always sink 

how do i tell you
you are hurting me—
when all you ever did
was everything
to love me?

how do i explain the ache
when your hands, once gentle,
carved kindness into my skin—
and now,
leave fingerprints
i can’t wash away?

there are moments i wonder—
in the silence between our storms,
do you still think of me?

not the version i became
while bracing your thunder,
but the one who once
held sunlight in her voice
and bloom in her eyes.

do you love me
on your darkest days?
when your smile is a ghost
and your warmth has forgotten
the shape of my hands—
do you still reach for me
in your mind’s quiet corners?

my love,
i don’t know anymore.

when i’m at my lowest,
you are still the first thought,
the last hope—
the anchor,
and yet, the weight
dragging me deeper.

i still think of you,
even as my lungs fill
with the water you poured in.

dearest—
i’m drowning.
and the last thing i said
wasn’t help—
it was your name.

you see,
i was suffocating
on the air you left behind,
breathing in promises
that never grew legs
to walk toward me.

you became the ache
i would bleed through
again and again—
willingly,
as if pain in your name
was still
some kind of devotion.

but how do i end this,
when loving you
was the rhythm
that taught my heart
to beat at all?

i want to stop—
god, i want to stop.

but how do i let my love for you die
without dying with it?
how do i bury this
when it was the only thing
that ever made me
feel alive?

so if i ever fade—
know it wasn’t the lack of breath
that silenced me...

…it was the weight
of loving you
too deeply
and too long.