I thought we were Rome,
endless, unshaken,
built on something that would outlive us both.
Every touch felt like stone laid with purpose,
every word a column reaching toward forever.
I believed in our permanence,
in the myth of us.
That nothing could breach these walls
we called love.
But you were Vesuvius,
quiet in your distance,
beautiful in your stillness,
and I mistook your silence for peace.
I didn’t see the smoke at first,
didn’t feel the tremor in your voice,
just kept building temples
to a god already leaving.
And when it came,
it wasn’t loud.
Not at first.
Just a slow, suffocating fall
of everything I thought we were.
You didn’t scream.
You didn’t warn me.
You just erupted into absence
and buried me in it.
Now I wander through ruins,
preserved in the moment I loved you most,
a ghost beneath ash
still reaching for your hand.
Because Rome was supposed to last forever,
but you ended us
like Pompeii.