I used to hold the room like a crossbeam, shoulders wired to the ceiling Your voice in orbit tugged my name like gravity If you shook, I tightened If you cracked, I stitched the break into my own body I didn’t notice how the storms kept finding my doorway How you knew my hands would rise before you asked They called it love, they called it loyalty But it was just weight poured into the hollow of my chest I never asked what my silence cost Or what it took to keep us from the drop Less of me holding all your sky Less of me catching every fault line Not collapse, not goodbye Just a heart that won’t be scaffolding this time I don’t brace for every shake I don’t claim each crack as mine If our world can stand without me I don’t have to be the load-bearing heart There was a time I thought your calm depended on my breathing That every quiet night meant a storm I failed to map So I slept inside your tension Turned every tremor into one more promise I could never keep But love does not need witnesses to count the aftershocks Does not require a spine to carry every bruise It only needs space where fear once nested And I was the cushion mistaken for proof So I started stepping sideways from your reach Not leaving just unwiring my heartbeat from your pulse Less of me holding all your sky Less of me catching every fault line Not collapse, not goodbye Just a heart that won’t be scaffolding this time I don’t brace for every shake I don’t claim each crack as mine If our world can stand without me I don’t have to be the load-bearing heart Less of me And you still breathe The first time I didn’t rush in Nothing broke only the story that I was the dam The quiet wasn’t failure It was your weather finding ground without my bones Less of me holding all your sky Less of me catching every fault line Not collapse, not goodbye Just a heart that won’t be scaffolding this time I don’t brace for every shake I don’t claim each crack as mine If our world can stand without me I don’t have to be the load-bearing heart Less of me And you still breathe Less of me And nothing precious disappears Only what was never mine to carry finally falls back into earth
