Time Loop
I keep meeting the same man
in different skin.
Different laugh,
different story,
different city on his tongue—
but the same locked door behind his eyes.
He calls me brother,
calls me real,
calls me at 2 a.m.
when the world gets too loud
and the powder gets too quiet.
And I come.
Like I always do.
Because maybe this time
“straight” is just a phase,
maybe this time
I’m not a secret,
maybe this time
love won’t feel like
standing outside my own life
watching someone else live it.
But time—
time is not fooled by hope.
It loops.
Christopher wore destruction like cologne,
left ash where there should’ve been breath.
Five years locked away,
but I’m the one who still feels sentenced—
car gone,
home gone,
pieces of myself scattered like glass
I’m still trying not to bleed on.
And now—
Alberto.
Nymz.
New name, same rhythm.
Same late nights.
Same chemicals whispering,
just one more line, just one more lie, just one more almost-love.
And my heart—
God, my heart—
still leans in
like it doesn’t remember fire burns.
But I do.
I remember.
I remember the almost dying.
The almost disappearing.
The version of me
that loved so hard
he forgot to survive.
I can’t afford that man anymore.
So here I stand—
in the loop,
but not asleep.
Seeing it.
Naming it.
Breaking the illusion
one truth at a time:
I am not here
to be someone’s hidden softness
while they destroy themselves in public.
I am not here
to translate love
from men who refuse to speak it.
I am not here
to almost live.
This time—
I choose the exit.
Even if it means
walking alone
for a while.
Even if it means
grieving what never fully existed.
Because somewhere outside this loop
is a life
that doesn’t ask me to shrink,
or chase,
or survive someone else’s storm.
And I—
I deserve to arrive there
whole.
