Amelia James Poetry

they say it’s over.
but my body still flinches
like it’s not.
like the break-up
never left the room.

grief doesn’t always howl.
sometimes it just lingers
in the same clothes
you wore when the story broke.

they called it heartbreak.
i called it survival
with a limp.
they called me dramatic.
i called it remembering too well.
they called it the past.
i called it current events.

you don’t just “move on”
from being rewritten.
from watching your character
get smeared
while he played the lead
in a script you didn’t know
you helped write.

and maybe that’s the part
i can’t seem to bury—
the knowing.
the cold clarity
that i told the truth
and they still handed him
the better ending.

no one tells you
how to survive a heartbreak
that costs you everything.
no one prepares you
for the kind of grief
that doesn’t leave pieces to pick up—
just
desolation.

some affairs get closure.
others just rot in the background
until you forget
what peace ever sounded like.

some days i carry it
like a bruise.
other days
it carries me—
quiet,
tired,
terminal.

and i’m not waiting for him.
not even for an apology.
i’m just waiting
to feel like the version of me
that died telling
might still be believed.

some heartbreaks heal.
others just
hibernate.

and this one?
this one
has metastasized.

not because i held on.
not because i couldn’t let go.
but because no one tells you
how to heal
from a story
time refused to bury.

i’m not unforgiving.
time is.

-Amelia James