MEA$URED TIME

In summer’s wake I held my line,
a circuit set, a measured time ☌

What circled back was not arrival,
but language shaped to test survival ☿

You spoke of futures dressed in light,
yet never planned a single night ⧖

I moved as someone fixed on path,
a narrowed field, an honest math ♃

You kept your exits undefined,
two paths that could not be aligned ⚸

You asked for slow, then ran ahead,
and paused again when silence spread ☾

Effort appeared when summoned near,
then vanished once the stakes were clear ♄

I gave you room within my days,
you took the space, then made delays ♇

I watched you touch the edge of home,
with hands that reached, then kept their zone ✸

I named the pattern, doubted me,
called instinct fear, not clarity 🜄

My body knew before my mind,
a fracture hidden, ill-designed 🜃

No lie was caught, no truth confessed,
just absence where there should be rest 🜂

I waited not for proof to land,
but read the cost I couldn’t stand ⧫

No flight appeared, no final date,
winter closed the gate of fate ✧

I chose the cut that leaves no scar,
the kind that seals you where you are ✸

No friendship grows from broken terms,
no warmth survives evasive turns ✦

You lost no ground, no hours bled,
your world unchanged by what you said ♃

I lost my span, my open door,
the hope I will not lend once more ⧫

Grief stayed, but did not make a plea,
it stood beside the truth with me 🜁

What marked me was not love’s defeat,
but clarity made incomplete ♄

I keep the lesson, not the name,
below the Moon, the fire remains ⟡