Your name in print a sudden jarring thing

Your name in print, a sudden, jarring thing,

like a stone dropped in a quiet well.

It rippled through the day, a subtle sting,

a story that I never chose to tell.

I traced the letters, bolded, in the news,

a ghost of what we were, or might have been.

And in that moment, all the old excuses

fell flat, thin, worn, like threadbare, faded linen.

I wanted to say then, when we were young,

and the air was thick with smoke and unspoken words,

that I was lost, and every song you sung

was a rope, a quiet tether for my birds.

But silence settled, heavy, in my throat.

And now, years later, I just write this down,

a private confession, a whispered note,

that you, in passing, never made a sound.