She stood in front of me, eyes swollen, voice trembling.

“I love you more than my own life,” she whispered,

And I believed her, because she meant it.

​

Her hands were warm, grounding,

Like sandalwood left out in the summer sun.

The room felt like her: soft, but not weak.

The kind of softness only a rose can survive with,

Fragile, forgiving, still standing after the storm.

​

She looked at me the way vanilla feels,

Slow, sweet, and without hesitation.

No perfume she wore that day.

And yet, the air held her like a memory that never left.

​

She was the apology I never asked for.

And I was the fool who would forgive her all over again.