A poem I've been working on: Were We Anything At All?
I traded my pride for your pulse and I gave you grace,
Turning a blind eye while you chased another man's face.
Now this silence is a poison I can no longer keep inside my chest,
A violent eviction of the ghost you left behind to haunt my rest.
I'm losing my very sanity, I’m losing all control,
Screaming into this black abyss: Were we anything at all?
I never claimed to be a saint, but I was the only anchor that refused to drag,
When the winter froze the water and your sails began to sag.
I opened up my chest to keep you warm against the frost,
Never knowing I was just a temporary inn where you could rest without a cost.
Now I am left to choke upon the smoke of our design,
Left behind to bleed against the wreckage of our shrine.
I am left to pay the penalty for a breach I didn't call,
Asking the ghost of us: Were we anything at all?
We sat side-by-side in the quiet pews, intending to strengthen our bond,
I was looking at paths to our future, while you stared at a dark void beyond.
Before a single holy sentence could settle or breathe in the air,
You pulled down the rafters on us and left me broken in my chair.
I thought we were building a fortress to shield us from everything cold,
But you were just handing me over to a grief that I still hold.
I was laying the bricks of our future, working hard through the sweat and the strain,
Entirely blind to the shadows you hid, completely unaware of your pain.
One second we’re building our sanctuary, cementing each stone to stay strong,
The next you are tearing our world apart, decreeing that everything’s wrong.
If our history carried a weight, why deny me the right to a choice?
Why shatter the walls that we built, instead of just using your voice?
You were my entire story, every page I ever read,
I was just a footnote that you skipped over instead.
I made you my whole history, my future, and my home,
While you ripped out my chapter just to burn it all alone.
Now I’m reading through the margins, trying to find my role,
Was I just a single paragraph? Were we anything at all?
This rope on my wrist; the braided bond from when we were forced apart,
I thought it represented the intertwining of our hearts.
I thought it was a sign of love, to guide me through the dark.
But now it is just a tourniquet, trying to stop the bleeding of my heart.
It’s a physical reminder of how you changed the very sky,
And left me in the dust to watch the light in my eyes die.
I’m searching through the dark, losing my hold, I'm fucking begging you, please,
Were we anything at all?
You weaponise your youth, calling it a vast and open road,
A hollow shield to hide the truth of the debt that I am owed.
It’s just a gamble to see if someone can offer you a better life,
Than the man who carved his own heart out just to give you paradise.
I’m searching for a sign of life on a picked-clean soul,
Please tell me my love, were we anything at all?
I stand on the lonely platform where we used to hide,
Demanding to know why the things we bleed for never survive.
I ask God if my devotion was a sanctuary, or just a cage you had to flee,
If I was a home to you, or just a waiting room for another man you hope to see.
Don't you dare offer me friendship like it’s a crown or a prize,
It’s a bitter insult to the months I spent helping you rise.
And while you’re out there seeking someone new in the sun,
I’m down here in the shadows, bleeding out and utterly undone.
My nerves are frayed wires, my spirit is encased in a darkened hole,
Please show me the light, were we anything at all?
You let their whispers compromise the columns of our trust,
Leaving me to hold the roof while the walls turned into dust.
But the second that my loyalty became a vault you couldn't break,
You ran towards the exit gate for a phantom's sake.
Not even for another man, you didn't have a backup plan,
You just walked away from everything for the chance of a better man.
I’m still in the trenches, holding a line you abandoned without a word,
Staring at the vacant space where your heartbeat once stirred.
I’m not just holding on, I am fused to this sinking ship, heart-to-steel,
I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have a soul that doesn’t scream to feel.
I am staying in the sorrow. I am staying in the ache.
I am gambling my entire existence on a love you chose to forsake.
I remember telling you I’d leave if you ever chose to go,
That fighting a destined loss was a tragedy I didn't need to know.
But I was blind then; I didn't understand how a heart tears at the seams,
Or how a man will willingly hang himself from the scaffolding of his dreams.
Now I’m ripping up my own regulation, throwing my pride into the flame,
Charging weaponless into the ambush, screaming out your fucking name.
So let the ceiling fall. Let the smoke consume the floor.
I will stand in the blinding blaze and wildly beg for more.
Call it my execution, but I refuse to flee the space,
Where I used to hold your hands and look into your face.
Now I’m defending a graveyard, calling to a stone that cannot hear,
Mortified to realize I’m the only ghost remaining here.
Now the embers have gone cold, and the shadows start to crawl,
And suddenly I realize, I am fighting for nothing at all.
I am an unyielding soldier pacing through the ruins of my home,
A terrifying monument to a man who stands alone.
I love you with a gravity that pulls the stars out of place,
Mapping my entire universe around the outline of your face.
It is a devotion so colossal, so unyielding and profound,
That even as you walk away, my world still orbits your ground.
I gave you all my light, I made your heartbeat my eternal sun,
Fusing my existence to yours until the two of us were one.
Because when you love someone so much that you'd give up your own breath,
You willingly walk forward, balancing on the borders of death.
You bleed for a person who causes you pain,
And you'll walk into fire just to drown in their rain.
But after everything we're just two hearts broken on the floor,
And one was mine, but both are yours.
I scream to the heavens to drag you back down,
I long for the one who leaves me to drown.
Look into my eyes, I've splintered apart,
Still desperately loving the knife buried deep in my heart.
I am losing my mind, I have lost all control.
Darling please, I need to know,
Tell me, were we anything at all.