The Love I Couldn’t Keep

The hardest part was not loving you that came like a tide, flooding every corner of me with a quiet, unquestioning yes. It was the knowing that no matter how deeply I held you, you were already halfway gone a wild thing I was never meant to cage.

You moved through me like a season I didn’t want to end. And I I built altars from our mornings, sipped eternity from your voice, wrote futures in the sky with your name. But I could feel it you were not mine to hold. Only to honor, as you drifted out of reach.

Still, I stayed soft. I stayed open. I let the love live in me even as you disappeared from it. That is how I know it was real not by the staying, but by the loving without a promise of return.

Now, when I think of you, it’s not with anger it’s with a tenderness that hums beneath my ribs. You were the ache that taught me presence. The goodbye that taught me grace.

So go, if you must. But know a part of you will always live here, in the place where I learned that love is not possession, and letting go is sometimes the highest form of devotion.