“The Apology I Keep Writing for You”
I still flinch when someone says your name, like it’s a blade I swallowed that never stopped slicing.
But I don’t let myself get angry.
I say, he’s young, he didn’t mean to, maybe he was just scared.
I wrap your ghost in bubble wrap, cradle it like a bruised peach instead of the rotting thing it became.
I turn your silence into sonnets. Your lies— I turn them into lullabies so I can sleep at night without choking on the truth.
I keep defending you in courtrooms that don’t exist, to juries who never asked.
I say: he's had it rough, he doesn't trust easily, he never asked for love—
—but I gave it anyway like an organ to someone who never wanted to live.
You hurt me. Softly. Slowly. Repeatedly. Like water on stone. A thousand tiny kindnesses you never meant but I kept carving into scripture.
You bled me dry and called it a favor.
And I thanked you. I always fucking thanked you.
Even now— with this hollow in my chest, this self I can’t quite find— I still want you to feel okay.
I keep writing poems that apologize for yours.
Keep rewriting history so I don’t have to hate you.
Because if I hate you I’ll have to admit you saw how much I cared and you used it. You saw me starving and you threw crumbs just to watch me crawl.
And still— I can’t stop hoping you’ll turn around, just once, and say:
I knew what I was doing. I knew you loved me. I took and I took and I never looked back. And I’m sorry.
But I know you won’t. You’re not cruel enough to confess. Only cruel enough to pretend it was never that deep.
So I keep the rage buried in the back of my throat, choke on it like a secret name I never get to say out loud.
And I call that love.











