Echoes of a Love That Never Was

By [Brwa S Rasheed]

I loved you like a wound loves the knife,
like fire craves the air that chokes it dead.
It wasn’t a choice�"it was a sickness,
a slow venom curling through my veins.

You never saw me. Never felt the weight
of my name bleeding through your silence.
I was nothing but a shadow stretching,
reaching, breaking,
for a light that never turned my way.

I watched you give your hands to another,
saw your lips shape words I’d never taste.
I was the dust beneath your step,
the breath between your laughter,
a ghost in a room that once held hope.

Love should not feel like starvation.
It should not scrape bone or carve scars
into a heart that only ever wanted
to beat in time with yours.

But here I stand, hollow, ruined,
every part of me rotting in your absence.
Not because you left�"
you were never mine to lose.

And still, I ache.
And still, I burn.
And still, I love.
And it is killing me.