Amelia James Poetry

They don’t carry the weight.
How light the world feels
when you turn your back on what’s broken,
and let someone else pick up the shards.

It’s so easy to forget
when you haven’t been the one crushed
under the weight of it.
It’s so easy to ignore
the scars they left behind
and call it nothing—
nothing at all.

He smiles,
tells me nothing happened.
Like a ghost who never existed.
Like a wound that never bled.
His lies, soft as silk,
wrap the truth up tight,
and he pretends it’s not there.
He moves on—
a little lighter,
a little freer.
Why not? He wasn’t the one
left picking up the pieces.

Others?
They nod and look the other way,
their faces worn with deliberate ignorance,
content in their comfort.
They don’t ask questions,
don’t reach out to see if I’m still drowning.
Why would they?
They’ve already moved on,
left me buried in the rubble
of a mess that wasn’t theirs to clean.

Meanwhile,
I carry their shit like it’s mine.
It’s been years,
but I still feel it,
still try to pick it all up,
piece by fucking piece.
The weight of their silence,
the absence of their guilt,
grinds down like stones in my chest.
I was the one thrown into the storm,
but I’m the one left to dry the wreckage.

And they walk away,
as if nothing happened,
as if everything’s fine.
They don’t see the mess,
the aftermath they left behind.
I’m the one who has to clean it—
the one who has to hold it all together,
while they pretend it was never real.

-Amelia James