Ashley Monae

The day he hit me didn’t start with anger. It started like any other day quiet tension dressed up as normal, words walking on eggshells, me shrinking just enough to keep the peace alive. I remember the room. How still it felt right before everything broke. And when it happened it wasn’t just my skin…

You stand there not broken, not whole, just.. suspended Still. Like life pressed pause without asking you first. There’s a list somewhere there’s always a list of things you should be doing, calls you should make, plans you should follow, feelings you should have figured out by now. But your mind? It’s loud and empty…

You don’t even call him yours not out loud. Not to your friends, not in your phone, not even in your prayers. But somehow he still found a way to live in the spaces between your responsibilities between school, between shifts, between packing lunches and being fully available whereever your needed. He fits where he…

I think about him sometimes not a face, not a name, just a feeling that never found me. Like a song I somehow already know the words to, but its never been played out loud. I imagine he would’ve noticed the small things like the way I carry everything at once like I was built…