Mourning after

I don’t love.

I linger.

Stay just long enough

to make your sheets miss me.

Leave just soon enough

for your hands to lie about how empty they feel.

I kiss like I mean it —

but only once.

You’ll taste it later

on your pillow,

on your breath,

on the name you don’t say out loud

anymore.

I make memories

like bite marks.

Small.

But permanent.

Every room I leave

smells like “what if.”

Every body I touch

asks for seconds

before they finish swallowing the first.

I don’t say goodbye.

I let the silence

undress you after I’m gone.

Mourning after,

and I’m not there.

Just the warmth.

Just the ruin.

Just the echo of a “don’t stop”

you never meant to scream.

I don’t leave fingerprints —

just second thoughts.

I don’t call back.

I call forward.

You’ll hear me again

when someone else

kisses you wrong.

You’ll flinch

when they do it right.

I haunt the good ones.

Slip between the sheets of better people

and make them worse

for knowing me.

I don’t destroy —

I decorate.

I leave you

beautifully haunted.

I didn’t break you.

You begged to bend.

And I was gentle

for someone with

every reason not to be.

Mourning after,

no regrets.

Just bruises

with names you won’t admit.

I leave soft.

But I stay

in the mirror.

And some nights,

you look yourself in the eyes

and see me blinking back.

I didn’t promise forever.

I promised the moment.

And I gave it.

Dripping, breathless,

pure.

You wanted more.

But I’m not a habit —

I’m a relapse

in a satin dress.

Mourning after.

One kiss.

One name.

One moment

you won’t ever forget

but won’t ever repeat.

I’m not a secret.

I’m a scar

you kissed back.