I am too proud to ask you
what’s wrong.
So I shrug my shoulders and say
you “need space.”

I wait patiently for an apology
that will never come —
one that I never asked for
or told you why it was necessary

I am alone
like
a light in a vast, black sea
calling souls home
while unaware of the choppy waves
or rocky shores underneath me

I call to those lost to me
but beneath, I’m the reason they slip away.