I Came With Love in my Hands

I came with love in my hands,
soft as the memory of first kisses and vinyl slow songs,
expecting nothing but a smile,
a seat at the old table,
a glimpse of the boy I once knew.

He was there—
older, still magnetic, still dangerous in the way
familiar ghosts are.

We danced in the echoes.
We pressed lips to nostalgia
and whispered names like spells.

But something in me watched—
not the girl I once was,
but the woman who’s outgrown
being second to someone’s secrets.

He showered off the proof
of someone else’s arms,
while I waited,
heart full and hollow all at once.

I could have stayed.
I could have forgotten the ache
and called it “closure.”

But I remembered—
what it feels like to be a sacred thing
in an unholy room.

So I left.
Not with bitterness.
Not with shame.

Just grief—the kind that cleanses,
the kind that says,
“I still love deeply. I just no longer bleed for breadcrumbs.”