I built a house of quiet vows,
stone by stone, your name the mortar,
and never thought to guard the door
against the ghost still calling after.
You said it was nothing, just a moment,
just an old flame passing through.
But your eyes went soft with him
the way they used to soften just for me.
Now I carry this new arithmetic:
how much of “I love you” was true.
I don’t hate you, that’s too easy.
I just don’t know your hands from his.
Trust doesn’t shatter all at once,
it thins like fabric worn too sheer,
until one day I reach for it
and there’s nothing left to hold me here.
– Cyril Johnson
Explanation
The poem moves from security to rupture. It opens with a house-building metaphor, vows as stones, trust as mortar showing how much care went into the relationship, and how that same care left a blind spot. The second stanza captures the betrayal quietly rather than dramatically an old flame returns, and the wounding detail isn’t the act itself but seeing her eyes soften for someone else the way they once did for him.
The final two stanzas sit in the aftermath not anger, but disorientation. “I don’t hate you that’s too easy” points to how hatred would at least give the pain a direction, while what’s actually left is confusion and distance. The closing fabric image, trust thinning rather than breaking all at once, ties back to the house metaphor, suggesting what felt solid was only ever as strong as thread.
