🎂

the clock reaches twelve,
like it’s been waiting all year
to do this to me.

no candles,
no voices filled with song,
just the wind stinging my cheeks.

my birthday ends,
and nothing arrives with it.

the quiet invites itself in,
so heavy it knocks the air out of me,
louder than any wish i never said out loud.

a single tear slips free-
warm, unannounced,
as if my body understood before i did.

this is the moment
where hope stops pretending-
where endings are finished.

the past feels distant now,
names erased by time,
memories thinning like old photographs left in the sun

i don’t argue anymore-
i just listen
as the clock ticks.

and in that stillness,
i finally understand.

this was the sign-
the last one i needed.