a poem by Roger B. Rueda
It started as nothing,
a sentence misplaced,
a breath between moments
I should have remembered—
but she said I did.
"You told me," she whispered,
eyes soft as confession,
a voice sculpted in silk,
so certain it made my own
memory waver.
"You told me it was fine.
You even suggested it."
The words curved in the air,
settled like dust
on something once untouched.
Had I? Could I have?
I know myself. I know
what I would and wouldn’t do—
but her voice was a thread,
pulling at the weave
until I saw the pattern
she wanted me to see.
"You don’t remember?"
She sighed,
as if my doubt was a weight
she had carried for too long.
"You said it last week.
We talked about this.
I wouldn’t have done it
if you hadn’t agreed."
A kindness laced the lie,
so careful, so clean,
as though I had left
the thought there
for her to pick up
and hand back to me.
I almost took it.
Almost let it shape itself
inside my chest.
But the body knows
what the mind forgets—
a pulse quickens,
a silence sharpens,
the space between truth
and untruth glows
like a fault line.
No. I did not say it.
I did not.
Still, she had already
pressed the words into me,
already left, her absence
a quiet permission
for the doubt to stay.
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