I learned the art of keeping clocks alive
Winding hours that were never mine
Polished silence fed the dark
Called it devotion called it time
I wore the weight of ordinary days
Turned need into a practiced grace
You mistook the giving hand
For something that would never ache
There’s a difference hard to name
Between sustaining and decay
Some things rot in open air
Some rot dressed as faith
I don’t break
I refine
Leave the excess behind
What you touched
What you spent
Was the future I resigned
I don’t rage
I release
Like a season past its lease
What you wanted wasn’t love
It was access it was ease
You spoke in currencies I didn’t trade
Soft exchanges borrowed praise
Every door you learned to open
Led you further from my name
I kept the house from caving in
Held the shape you couldn’t live
Funny how survival looks
Like surrender from within
Care is quiet care is slow
Until it learns it’s being sold
What I thought was loyalty
Was debt you never owed
I don’t break
I refine
Leave the excess behind
What you touched
What you spent
Was the future I resigned
I don’t rage
I release
Like a season past its lease
What you wanted wasn’t love
It was access it was ease
No confession no display
I don’t need the why or when
If something feeds on what I am
I stop calling it a man
I don’t break
I conclude
Let the quiet tell the truth
What I lost I outgrew
What I kept was me not you
