three people standing in a room. that’s how it starts.

no. three hearts standing in one body.

no. three knives, circling the same throat.

her:

i only wanted to be wanted. that’s it. the crime. i laugh too loud when he looks at me, and when he touches my wrist it feels like the sky has remembered my name, but then i think of her, how her eyes are whole oceans, how she makes me want to write my will on her shoulder blades, because i would die there. so what now? i’m greedy? i’m a thief? i’m a mirror that cracks because it tries to hold too many faces at once.

him:

she thinks i don’t notice the way she burns in both directions. but i do. i notice the twitch in her jaw when i touch her, like she’s holding back some confession that has teeth. and when she looks at her, i want to swallow the sun. i want to erase history with my hands. don’t talk to me about fairness. i don’t want fair. i want everything.

the other her:

i don’t chase. i never chase. but she makes me want to run barefoot across glass just to reach her. i watch the two of them dance with their shadows, and i want to slit my shadow’s throat, so it stops following me into rooms where she is kissing him and pretending she doesn’t hear me breaking. still, i stay. because love is the worst kind of superstition: if you wait long enough, maybe the miracle will turn in your direction.

this is not a triangle. this is a circle that refuses to close.

this is hunger wearing three masks.

this is a wound that thinks it’s a garden.

and maybe that’s the tragedy: none of them are villains, but someone has to play the ghost.