The Last Time & The Time After That

She didn’t know the last time

would be the last time.

She thought there’

d be another:

another lazy Sunday,

another chortled laugh,

another failed chance to fix what broke,

to mend the splintered hearts,

to take back the words she never meant.

But there wasn’t.

It hid itself in the ordinary:

in a lukewarm kiss,

and a grocery list left on the counter,

and a yawn that said more than she ever did,

and when she looked back,

there it was all along.

She still checks her phone,

scrolls past the last message he didn’t open,

still thinks about

what she should have said,

or could have done

to make him love her just one more day.