We walked among stones big as houses.
We stood in the dark of them,
in the shadows between them
and before I could stop you,
you scratched our names
into them with the little white rocks
you fished out of the crevices.
When you were done, you said
“Now they’ll know we were here.”
I wanted to rub them out.
Our names, you. The house stones
never wanted to know we were here,
I never wanted anyone to know,
because I’d stopped loving you already
and just hadn’t learned
the coward’s word for goodbye.
So you skipped among the rocks
and I stood and stared at our names,
at the hearts scrawled between our names,
at the chalky white lies you set down in stone,
thinking I could never come back here
once I learned how to leave you.
