NOTHING LEAVES CLEAN

I learned early—
nothing leaves clean.

Not grief.
Not love.
Not the versions of you
you had to bury to survive.

Fallen tears.
Coffee stains.

Sunlight
cracks through the window—
soft,
but unforgiving.

Heaven—
a state of mind.
Hell
lives deep in the heart.

Smoke without fire.
Footsteps that don’t return.
And something in you
still counting the dead.