This is Where I Died in You

It was not the blade, not the scream, not the thousand prayers swallowed before morning came. It was the moment your silence blinked and I saw myself inside it. Not you. Only my echo dressed in your name. I knelt inside your chest, curled beside the last warm place you left for me, before the fire went out. You called it love. I called it extinction. Still, I touched your hand like it was a letter I forgot to send in every lifetime before this. My name dissolved on your tongue like sugar in an ocean. And that was mercy. We were not made for forever. We were made for this: A beautiful ruin, still bleeding, but framed in gold. This is where I died in you willing, wordless, and whole.