The Version You Never Met

I was halfway rebuilt

when you came asking questions —

not to stay,

but to satisfy your doubt.

You didn’t want truth.

You wanted relief from guilt,

a softer story

you could sleep beside.

I would’ve taken you in,

bloodied hands and all.

I waited in the ashes

with the lantern still lit.

But you needed a path without fire.

You needed peace without repentance.

You needed a man

who wouldn’t remind you of the baby we lost.

And I wasn’t him anymore.

I was becoming more.

Until I wasn’t.

I died quietly, my dear  

Not by blade,

but by the absence of yours.

By the echo of your silence

where a voice once promised “forever.”

You won’t find me again.

Not in Norman.

Not in heaven.

Not in the version of yourself

you keep refusing to become.