Work Text:
I lied when I said I was fine.
Because you needed me to be.
Because your eyes searched mine like a prayer,
begging for something stable to hold.
I lied because my grief was flooding the room,
and you were already knee-deep,
trying to smile through the undertow.
I said I was okay
because the truth would’ve wrecked you.
Because my pain wore your name too often,
and I knew
if I let it spill,
you’d try to catch it with bare hands
and bleed.
So I stayed quiet.
Folded the ache like laundry.
Smiled with the same mouth that trembled in the dark.
It wasn’t courage.
It was love.
The kind that breaks itself quietly
so no one else has to.
You wanted honesty.
But I only had silence.
And a storm I refused to let drown us both.