I kept my vigil where your shadow bled.
.

I named the silence after what we were.
.

I fed my hope on every word you said.
.

You walked away, your answers never sure.
.

I dressed my longing in a borrowed light.
.

I traced your absence on my open palm.
.

I called it love, this self‑inflicted fight.
.

You called it nothing, then you walked on calm.
.

I learned the shape of “no” in every glance.
.

I wore refusal like a second skin.
.

I mistook pain for some ordained romance.
.

You never owed me what I burned within.
.

I built a chapel out of could‑have‑been.
.

I prayed to futures that would not arrive.
.

I dragged my heart through every might‑have‑sin.
.

You stayed untouched, while I stayed half‑alive.
.

I worshiped echoes that would not respond.
.

I tried to bargain with a vacant throne.
.

I called it fate, this unilateral bond.
.

You called it kind to let me grieve alone.
.

I read old theories on the ways hearts cling.
.

I named my patterns like a taxon chart.
.

I saw a child inside my suffering.
.

You were the stage, but I supplied the heart.
.

I learned that love is not a debt to claim.
.

I learned that hunger is not proof of bread.
.

I let the fire die down without your name.
.

You stayed the ghost I no longer was fed.
.

I turned my gaze from what would not return.
.

I placed my faith in what my hands could give.
.

I let compassion be the way I burn.
.

You were the lesson; I remained to live.
.

I met a softness that did not withdraw.
.

I found a soul that stayed when curtains fell.
.

I saw devotion without sharpened claw.
.

You’d call it simple; I’d call it a spell.
.

I learned that loving is a chosen art.
.

I tend this garden like a sacred vow.
.

I give without a ledger in my heart.
.

You were the wound; this given love is now.
.

…

DCG