It started hours before
anyone would admit it.
the sky bruised slowly,
like it was trying to decide
whether or not to fall apart.
you were in the next room,
moving things that didn’t need moving.
I could hear your hands
searching for anything
to stay busy with.
I stayed still.
sometimes stillness
is the only way
to survive a shift
you can’t stop.
the walls knew.
the air had that
tight, electric edge
like it had just been told
a secret it didn’t want to keep.
we didn’t fight.
we didn’t even speak.
but something was splitting open
beneath all that silence.
something that used to be
ours.
your shadow passed down the hall
like a question
I didn’t know how to answer.
outside, the world bent sideways.
things hit the house
that didn’t belong in the air.
but we just sat
in separate rooms,
waiting for it to be over—
knowing it already was.
and when it did pass,
when the quite returned,
it wasn’t relief.
it was aftermath.
and that’s a different kind of grief.