ARTIST. GRIOT. ACTIVIST

You counted in hours.
I loved in seasons.
And somewhere between your stopwatch
and my sunrise,
we lost the rhythm we once knew.

I understood silence as the language of distance,
believed that love could linger like a grudge

pressed into glass, your heart a book-
keeper of wounds I never meant to cause.

I gave grace like breath,
not expecting it back,
just hoping it was enough
to keep us from drifting.
But your ledger grew
with each slow response,
your heart a bookkeeper
of wounds I never meant to cause.

One day, you read the numbers out loud
not with rage,
but with the cold certainty
of someone who’d already decided.
You had done the math.
I had come up short.

And I…
I didn’t argue.

What do you say
when love is outscored
by tally marks?

So I let go–
not because I stopped caring,
but because I was tired
of being an account you audited
instead of a friend you trusted.

It hurts still
this absence that echoes
not with anger,
but with the quiet grief
of what won’t return.

Some bonds don’t break.
They simply
fade,
thread by thread,
beneath the weight
of what wasn’t forgiven
in time.

Peace begins with me.
©Naan Pocen 2025