Not a Key, Just Ash

You mistook my silence for yearning.
My art is not an altar to your absence.

I write of ghosts, yes…
but none of them wear your name.

The spell you claim I cast?
It was a warding.
A hex.

You should be whispering those things
to the one who waits for you in daylight…
not the one who vanished into shadow.

I do not clutch pillows in your name.
I do not weep into cotton for the ghost of your touch.
My thighs do not tremble
because of you.
They quake because I have learned
how to pleasure my damn self
with truth.

So here’s your truth:

Your key
never fit.
And the jar?
It’s sealed.

Not with wax…
but with salt.

You were never the spell.
You were the lesson.
And I?
I am the witch who survived it.

The jar on my shelf contains
no key…
only the last breath
of who I was
before I remembered
I don’t belong to anyone.
Especially not you.

For those who listen between the lines.
Elaine Degro

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Grieving in Silence

Look for the Moms

Softness

Gypsy