Any and Everything

I let him in
like a ghost I never believed in—
soft at first,
then sudden,
like breath drawn too sharply
after forgetting how to breathe.

He wasn’t love.
He was the echo of it.
The silhouette of a man shaped
by the hunger of grief.

And I—
I was a graveyard wrapped in skin,
aching to be touched
without being reopened.

I let him stay
just long enough
to remember what warmth felt like
on bones still brittle from loss.
Just long enough
to pretend I could survive
something beautiful
without bleeding.

But truth is cruel,
and dreams rot when you stare too long.
So I buried him
in the same quiet place
I buried my forever.

Now I walk with ghosts in my mouth,
taste him in the pause between sobs,
in the bitter lull of dawn.

And though I chose the silence—
every night,
his name scratches the walls of my mind,
asking to be remembered
just once more.