Aftercare

i’ve learned the shape of evenings

when they start to slip too far

how quiet things get honest

when you’ve gone past where you are

there’s a bottle in the background

like it’s part of the furniture

and i don’t call it anything

that makes it feel unsure

i tell myself it’s nothing

just a way to pass the time

but time starts getting heavy

when it doesn’t feel like mine

i don’t name it when it starts

i don’t stop it when it shows

i just watch the edges blur

and let it go

and i come back to myself

like i’ve been somewhere else

hands shaking in the quiet

trying to reset

and i say i’ll do better

like i’ve said it before

but some nights don’t listen

to anything more

there are marks i never mention

not because they aren’t real

but because explaining them

would change the way they feel

so i write around the subject

like an author in disguise

leaving space where the details

don’t survive

and it looks like nothing happened

if you only read the page

but the margins tell a different

kind of shape

no beginning

no end

just the loop

i live in again

and i come back to myself

a little less intact

pretending that tomorrow

won’t look like that

and i say i’m still learning

how to step away

but the silence in the room

already knows my name

if you had to write it plainly

it would sound too direct

so it becomes something softer

in the subtext

a story about forgetting

what you meant to be

and the gap between intention

and what people see

and i come back to myself

like it’s something i can do

but i never really left

it just moved through

and i don’t call it a failure

i don’t call it a fight

just the way some nights

refuse to end right

tomorrow is still a sentence

i haven’t written yet