It's be like that

I'm outside looking in at the life we were supposed to be.

The family trips. The house with the squeaky stairs. The baby with your smile and my stubbornness.

You got all those things with a person who's not me.

And that's the heartbreak.

Not losing what we had

but watching someone else hold what I thought was waiting for me.

I see the pictures.

Matching pajamas on Christmas. Vacation photos by the ocean. A little hand wrapped around your finger.

Moments I rehearsed in my head like lines from a play I was certain I'd been cast in.

Instead, I'm sitting in the audience.

In the back.

Watching another man live a role I spent years preparing for.

Building a home from dreams that once carried my fingerprints.

And some days, I wonder if you ever remember.

If you ever glance across the dinner table and think about the blueprint we sketched on napkins and late-night phone calls.

Or if that version of us is buried so deep that I'm the only one who still knows where the grave is.

But life keeps teaching me that beautiful dreams aren't proof of ownership.

Some houses are built from your plans and still become someone else's address.

Some prayers leave your mouth with your name attached and come back answered for somebody else.

And maybe that's the hardest lesson.

I wasn't wrong about the dream.

I was wrong about who it belonged to.

So now I stand outside the window, looking in.

Not because I still want to come home.

But because every now and then I catch a glimpse of the life I imagined

and have to remind myself

that seeing something clearly

doesn't mean it was ever mine.

maybe

You grew in the middle of my garden

where nothing romantic was supposed to survive.

Just friendship.

Just two people

watering the same patch of ground

without asking what the roots were becoming.

Then one spring,

something strange appeared.

A single fruit

hanging from a branch

I swear wasn't there before.

Gold as temptation.

Heavy as consequence.

I named it Maybe.

And ever since,

the whole garden has felt different.

The birds sing rumors.

The wind keeps pushing me toward it.

Even the sunlight lingers

like it's waiting to see what I'll do.

You stand beneath the tree unaware,

talking about your day,

while I'm fighting the oldest battle known to man

whether desire is worth the exile.

Because I know what happens in stories.

One bite

and paradise becomes memory.

One confession

and suddenly every laugh has a history,

every silence has a meaning,

every friendship has a before and after.

So I keep my hands in my pockets.

Pretend I don't notice

how the fruit gets riper each time you smile.

Pretend I don't hear it calling my name

when the conversations stretch past midnight.

Pretend the branch isn't bending lower

with the weight of everything unsaid.

But temptation is patient.

It doesn't knock.

It grows.

And some nights

I swear the garden disappears altogether.

There's only the tree.

Only the fruit.

Only me standing beneath it,

starving.

Wondering if hunger

is easier to survive than loss.