If time were a softer thing,
something that could be folded between fingers and persuaded into stillness,
I would not bargain with it.
No prophecy would leave my lips.
No miracle would be summoned in quiet desperation.
I would not reach backwards to disturb what has already learned how to breathe without me.
Instead…
I would take your name,
hold it with the kind of care reserved for things that do not return,
and write carefully, in ink
Once...
...then break my pen.
Not out of caution,
nor fear of smudging...
but because completion has no interest in repetition.
I trust your name enough to never rewrite it
Let morning arrive with its rehearsed arguments.
Let night gather its ash and call it closure.
Let fate drag itself to my door, unrecognisable, asking for revision.
It will find nothing here.
The page has already been claimed.
And I...
Well...
I have already chosen the shape of what remains.
Your name does not waver in my hands.
It settles.
It stays.
I trust your name enough to live in it forever.
And whatever stains linger at my fingertips
are not accidents…
they are the quiet proof,
my final act of love,
that I never intended to write anything else.
