(NOTE: Inspired by a journal about past events, does NOT reflect the present.)
I don’t know why I loved her, but I did. I don’t know why I miss her, but I do. I don’t know why I continue to love her, but I do.
Poem #1
What does this sadness tell me?
That I loved you,
that I still love you,
that love comes in all sorts of forms
and it is brave to let it live.
What does this sadness tell me?
That I cannot save you,
that I cannot rush in
like a knight on a horse
and whisk you from your demons.
What does this sadness tell me?
That I am not quite as done as I thought,
that I am not quite as free as I thought.
That it was brief but special,
and there is no denying this specialness.
There is no point in pretending
my world was not changed
because of you.
I choose to keep loving you.
To hope your dreams pour over you like rain
even if I am not there to brush the hair from your face,
even if you are not here with laughter in your eyes.
I choose to leave my heart soft and open
because you have only known hard and closed,
and even on this side of your walls,
engulfed by the shadows of your defenses,
my arms are wide.
My soul, it is waiting
even if it takes 1000 lifetimes,
for you to remember
I am here.
And this is not weakness.
This is not desperation or cowardice.
No.
This is bravery and fortitude,
to dare to love and receive nothing,
to love you in the chaos of your pain,
to love you when it wrings out my heart,
to choose unconditional love.
No expectation, no judgment,
nothing in return.
Just… love.
Poem #2:
It felt like you tried to take the most important thing in my life.
Like you pushed me from my spotlight and coveted my throne,
like you took joy in your pedestal enshrouding mine in shadows,
like you kept tugging the threads you knew would undo my entire tapestry.
So I hope it means something to you that
I loved you the whole time anyway.
(NOTE: I REALLY, wholeheartedly thought I loved Girl. Sometimes I wonder if that love was just trauma response, just codependency and fawning and people-pleasing, just trying with all my might to make a hard-to-get human being SEE me. Perhaps not love at all? But I really did try my best with her, to be kind, generous, forgiving, compassionate, nurturing. I was likely too motherly, too concerned, too involved. I thought if I could make her happy, if I could help her in life, she’d see I was worth something. But, of course, I was the one who needed to see that I was worth something. And now I do.)
