20 Questions…?
It was the best of times, the worst in disguise
A tale of two cities and carefully spun lies.
One glittered in rooftops and counterfeit gold,
The other stayed warm through a winter gone cold.
You named it love; that hallowed thing,
Then wore it loose, like a passing fling.
I scarcely recall who I was before,
But I remember the shade your silence wore
A color that settles in dusk and dust,
The soft decay of unraveling trust.
Let’s play twenty questions.
Was she passing through, or was that your excuse?
Did the engines roar, or did you cut me loose?
When you said “just friends,” was it clean, rehearsed
Or did something falter when you typed it first?
You said it was nothing, just noise in a crowd
Then why did she claim you, alone and loud?
Why frame it like something already known,
Like I was nothing you had to defend or own?
She made you her headline with practiced ease,
Cutting the truth to whatever would please.
The image she chose, precise, refined,
Three faces arranged, but only hers aligned.
Did it feel honest, the way it was shown?
Or did you recognize what wasn’t your own?
Did your best friend watch and say nothing at all?
Did it look different to her, or not wrong at all?
If it were her name twisted, her place undone
Would she still call it nothing, or finally call it what you’ve done?
When I asked you plainly, did something shift
Or did you call it harmless and let it drift?
Let’s play twenty questions.
Has your name ever burned inside a verse,
Not for praise, but something worse?
When I spoke you aloud and the room fell still,
Did you hear the truth, or just the chill?
When I said “done,” did your chest pull tight,
Or did you settle into something easier, light?
You offered me peace like a borrowed coat
Worn-out comfort, a secondhand note.
A ghost in your life; that was your ask:
To soften, to shrink, to forget, to mask.
And I, unsteady, still ashamed,
Asked what she held that I was not named.
Your silence answered. Your pride did too.
I mistook my leaving as losing you.
But no, I was never made to fold.
I was the fire that made you cold.
Do you feel it now; that second-place ache?
The dimming shine when it’s not yours to take?
She holds your hand in curated light,
But I was the storm you couldn’t keep right.
I do not soften, I don’t pretend,
And I won’t dress this as some clean end.
Let her be gentle, composed, adored
I was the chaos your calm implored.
I have just a few more questions…
Has she ever quieted a room on sight
Not for scandal, but for sheer force of light?
Do they speak her name, or let it pass
When truth cuts through the polished glass?
Do the ones she keeps feel seen, or staged?
Do they stay for her, or just the page?
Was she ever chosen without design
Wanted like wildfire, not standing in line?
Has she ever been kissed in the Paris rain,
Not for proof — but because love couldn’t be contained?
Where laughter spills between each breath,
And even silence feels like depth?
I have.
And I never had to play her game.
By your own account, she was nothing
Yet she paraded you as a prize;
What does that make her,
And more to the point,
What manner of a man does that make you?
I bore the cost your silence spared,
Paid penance for faults you never declared.
Tell me, did it ease your sense of right,
To watch me yield, to watch me quiet?
Was it comfort, seeing me bend,
Apologize where I should defend?
Did you admire how far I would go
To carry a weight not mine to own?
In Madrid, where the nights ran bright and fast,
Why was I the one who let them pass?
Did it please you, that I withdrew,
Turned from a life that never wronged you?
I honored a promise you never knew,
Bought you a passage you never flew.
Would you have come, had it reached your hand,
Or left it untouched, as you left what we planned?
And when I left to Phoenix, as I said I might,
Did it trouble your sleep, if only one night?
Or was I easier, gone from view,
A distant cost that never reached you?
They named me foolish, they made it sport,
The girl who left one world for a poorer sort.
Tell me, did you hear how low it rang,
Or did it fade, as all things you began?
And yet answer this, if you answer true,
Who rose from the ruin that followed you?
Who took that loss, that exile, that fall,
And made of it something that answered all?
For I have gained what you never will,
Not borrowed pride, but a tested will.
I hold my name, my means, my power,
I built my fortune from that hour.
While you remain as you were then,
Unchanged in truth, unchanged in men,
Tell me, was it worth the cost you gave,
To stay so small, so safe, so saved?
And she, so careful, so composed,
Does she know the life I chose?
Or only mirror what she has seen,
A lesser echo of what I have been?
So answer plainly, if you dare,
Who lost the most, and who stands where?
Bleu de minuit 