I carved out hours, called them mine, guarded silence, drew the line. I told you, “I just need to breathe,” while you stood waiting, torn beneath. I rationed you in fleeting sips, your voice, your touch, your trembling lips. A shadow’s share, a stolen part and kept the rest locked in my heart. You asked for more, I turned away, “Not now, not yet, some other day.” But days grew cold, the calendar bled, and love lay starving, underfed. Now silence roars where laughter stood, and solitude feels more like wood a coffin carved by my own hand, for privacy I thought was grand. I see your ghost in every room, her silence heavier than gloom. For what is “me” without the “you”? A hollow life, a darkened view. I begged for space, for selfish time, and lost a soul who once was mine.