I Never Did It but There’s Glass in the Garden

I never did it.
Not the way they say.
Not with malice, not with rage
I only ever loved too much.

The moon was full when I found it,
not lost, no, just misplaced by fate.
Smiled like a memory I’d forgotten
and I knew I was understood.

I brought roses, always roses.
White ones, for purity.
Red ones, for the ache.
They never saw the petals fall.
They call it obsession.
I call it devotion.
They call it madness.
I call it music,
the kind that plays in silence
when the world forgets your name.

I never did it.
Not the way they say.
They speak of blood,
but never of the tears.
They count bodies,
but never the poems
I wrote on napkins, in margins,
in the quiet between heartbeats.

Mouth said no.
But eyes said maybe.
Mouth screamed.
But fists had lied before.
They’d all left me eventually,
I just made sure it was forever.

I never did it.
Not the way they say.
I only ever tried to keep
what the world kept stealing.
Is that so wrong?
Is that so unforgivable?

They’ll never understand.
They never listen to the soft ones.
The ones who cry after.
The ones who remember birthdays.
The ones who say sorry
to the shadows they leave behind.

I never did it.
Not the way they say.
I only ever loved too much.
And love, they say,
is the most dangerous thing of all.
I collect moments.

Not souvenirs.
Not trophies.

Just the way breath paused
when eyes saw me.
The way silence folds around
a name no one speaks anymore.

I am not cruel.
Cruelty is loud.
I am quiet.
I am method.
I am the pause between what they think
I am and what I know I’ve become.

They say I lack empathy.
But I remember every detail.
The chipped nail bright.
The scent of rain on a coat.
The way the eyes looked at me
like I was already gone.
I feel too much.

That’s the problem.
I feel the world pressing in
like wet leaves on skin.
I feel the ache of being forgotten
before I’ve even left the room.
I never wanted to hurt anyone.
I wanted to preserve them.
To keep them in the moment
before they changed.

Before they lied.
Before they left.

I talk to them sometimes.
Not out loud.
Just in the quiet places.

The attic.
The garden.
The mirror.

I am not broken.
I am rearranged.
Like furniture after a storm.
Like memories
that don’t match the photographs.
They call me monster.
But monsters don’t cry
when they read old letters.
Monsters don’t remember birthdays.

Monsters don’t whisper “I’m sorry” to the dark.