If the Boy Never Returns

I thought love might be enough—

twenty years of reaching,

twenty years of believing

that if anyone could break through the mirrors,

it would be me.

But love cannot shatter walls

someone keeps building higher.

Love cannot be heard

over the sound of someone shouting their own name.

You called it courage.

I called it care.

And somewhere in the silence between us,

care was twisted into performance,

love into leverage,

truth into deflection.

I see it now:

you were never climbing beside me.

You were circling your own reflection,

writing soliloquies to yourself

while I mistook the echoes for dialogue.

I wanted to believe

the boy with ink-stained fingers,

the boy with galaxies in his chest,

was still waiting to be found.

That he would remember me

the way I remembered him.

But he didn’t.

Or he couldn’t.

Or maybe he chose not to.

And I am left with the ache

of realizing love can be true

and still not be enough.

That devotion can last decades

and still meet only silence.

That the first man I ever loved

can become a stranger

who calls my fear privilege

and my pain performance.

So let this be the last time

I carry both of us up the hill.

Let this be the last time

I mistake your monologues for care.

If the boy never returns,

if he is buried for good

beneath the rubble of mirrors and masks—

then I will grieve him.

I will grieve us.

And I will let go.

Because I still have a galaxy in my chest,

and it deserves to burn

for someone who can see it

and not look away.