The Counting Hour
It's 4 AM, a hollow, ticking sound,
my mind a restless wheel I cannot bound.
I wish these memories would fade to gray,
but ghosts like you, they never go away.
Turns out that people lied with gentle breath,
they said, "Just snap your fingers," like a death
was something you could master with a click,
a simple, painless, disappearing trick.
I just need time, a currency I lack,
but time keeps taking everything back.
Snapping, one, two…
Where are you?
You're still in my heart, a stubborn, splintered part.
Snapping, three, four…
Don't need you here anymore.
Get out of my heart,
'cause I might snap.
I'm writing a poem, said, "This is the last one,"
but how many final verses have begun?
I'm losing count of tears I dropped on pages,
a futile rain to douse a fire that rages.
Since the 21st of November, when the cold first crept inside,
my heart's been an inferno I cannot hide.
I've been spending my nights in a downpour's sting,
trying to put it out, but the flames keep remembering.
Funny how the mind can close a door so tight,
yet the heart still sleeps on your side every night.
I have been fighting battles when I was with you,
and you made it seem easy, but know without you,
it's as difficult as saying goodbye to you,
a word I can't yet whisper, because some part of me refuses to.
And when we speak, I build walls with my words,
careful sentences like caged birds,
pretending I have finally learned to fly solo, to stand alone—
then your voice reaches through the phone,
and my heart forgets every lesson my mind has known.
It unlearns goodbye. It uncrosses the sea.
It still beats your name inside of me.
I tell myself I don't need you here anymore,
but my heart is a traitor opening the door
every single time.
My mind has packed your things in boxes, stacked them neat,
has written "moved on" on every inventory sheet.
But my heart still sets a plate for you at dinner,
still asks about your day, still swears you're thinner,
still hopes when the phone lights up, it's you—
and when it is, it doesn't know what to do
except break a little quieter, love a little deeper,
pretend I'm standing taller when I'm getting weaker.
So I'm snapping, one, two…
Where are you?
You're still in my heart, a wound that won't depart.
Snapping, three, four…
Don't need you here anymore.
Get out of my heart,
'cause I might snap.
And if one more person says, "You should get over it,"
a placid phrase they carelessly permit,
I want to tell them how I've tried, how I've wrestled with your ghost,
how losing you means losing the self I needed most.
I want to say I can't just snap my fingers and be free—
because some loves don't leave, they just learn to breathe differently
inside the chest, between the ribs, beneath the sternum,
a permanent resident my logic can't determine.
Oh, I might stop talking to people before I snap,
retreat into a silence where I don't have to explain
that healing isn't a straight line unwinding from the pain,
it's a conversation I keep having with your echo,
it's sounding whole while breaking where they'll never know.
It's speaking to you calmly, laughing at a shared old joke,
and dying as the embers rise like smoke.
Snapping, one, two…
Where are you?
You're still in my heart, not just a part—the core.
Snapping, three, four…
Don't need you here anymore, I say,
but my heart disagrees at the end of every day.
Get out of my heart,
'cause I might snap.
Get out of my heart, leave me empty, leave me cold—
or stay, and teach my heart to hold
a love it cannot keep, a loss it cannot fold.
Because I might snap.
I already have.
I'm still snapping.
Yeah, I might snap.
Copyright © Abusufyan Kateregga Bogere | Year Posted 2026
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