The Accidental Knife

I watched you touch her arm like you'd rehearsed it,

your hand already knowing where to land.

You were laughing about what I told you—

the thing I asked you to keep close.

Not malice. Just the forgetting.

The way some secrets stop being secrets

once you've passed them to someone else,

and suddenly they own the story more than I do.

Three days later I saw you both at the coffee shop.

Your hand in the same place on her sleeve.

You didn't know you were turning the knife.

You were just being kind to her,

the way I wanted you to be kind to me,

which is a completely different thing.

She got the secret first now. She gets to laugh at it.

You didn't even notice when you stopped

being the only one who knew.