I was never meant to hold a heart,
only to count its beats, measure the silence
between what was said and what was not.
You, unwelcome variable,
strayed into my equation—
disruptive, disorderly, a fracture in steel.

But I was forged for war,
not for waiting, not for wanting,
not for the slow decay of longing.
And so I do what I have always done—
place one foot before the other,
walk away like a soldier from a field of bones.

Love—what a pitiful disease,
a fever I cannot afford.
Better to be cold, better to be still.
So let this be the autopsy of us:
a final gaze, a final breath—
and then, silence.

I will not remember.
I will not turn back.
I will not feel.

I have bodies to walk over.

Lucija Lotus Mlinarič