Endings

I’m a poor student of endings,

always arriving late to the lesson.

I carry breakages with me,

tangled threads of conversation,

scraps of last looks,

each one a river

that never reaches the sea.

You’d think I’d know by now

how to step lightly from the banks,

how to let the current take

what no longer belongs—

but I’m always turning back,

looking for what’s already washed away,

fingertips skimming the surface

for a voice that’s drowned in its own silence.

It’s the leaving that sticks,

like silt clinging to boots—

the heaviness of what’s been

trailing behind me,

mud-soft and cloying.

I walk with endings in my wake,

their echoes caught in my hair,

in my breath—

the sigh of it all,

the slow ebb of love

that’s run its course.

Even now, I find myself

gathering stones,

pressing them into my palms,

imagining they’re still warm

from your hand,

from the heat of something

that was once alive,

but has now turned cold.

I’m not good at endings,

not good at letting them slip downstream.

Instead, I pocket them,

heavy, like guilt—

and keep walking,

carrying the weight of water,

of words left unsaid.