Echolalia

If you had asked,

I would have folded my words into something soft enough to swallow,

and prayed my tongue never betrayed me.

I want to write you sentences that taste like honey left too long in summer,

that hiss like matchsticks when they miss the dark.

They would walk barefoot through your silence,

these words—

they would learn your streets like an apology learning its way back home.

They would bleed ink-red and ocean-blue,

like cities remembering their storms.

They would refuse to behave on the page,

leaning into margins just to feel closer to you.

And if you still didn’t read them,

my darling,

they would turn themselves into braille on my ribs,

so even breathing would feel like your absence reading me back.

They would cross rivers made of unfinished sentences,

row themselves into the shape of your name,

even when I try to forget it.

I would write until even punctuation starts trembling—

until commas hesitate,

until full stops forget how to end anything without you.

Each vowel would belong to you,

each consonant a small surrender I never signed up for.

I know you won’t ask.

But I would still give you everything—

even the silence between my words,

even the echo after I stop writing.

I adore you.

And I keep writing you anyway.