Would you still be okay?

If I had killed myself last year,
would you still be okay?

I wonder because silence answers differently
depending on who survives it.

You listened to the echo,
not the voice that made it.

Only the incident survived the telling.
The roots were left underground,
where misunderstandings grow wild.

I was given a novel of my failures,
footnoted with disappointment,
published without my consent.

I was upset.
Not cruel.
Upset. And very misunderstood.

A year has passed.
We talk, but not there.
Not where it still aches.

Part of me refuses to reach back out,
because I was never met halfway.

I was met with judgment sharpened into certainty.

What I want is simple.
Not forgiveness.
Not erasure.

Just an apology that knows it was wrong.

Sometimes I think,

if I hadn’t survived myself,

would context suddenly matter?

Would my pain finally be believed?

This isn’t blame.

It’s a question left unanswered.

These are my words.

And I’m keeping them.

-Julz