Where Love Heals

My heart once saw you through a straw—
narrow, softened,
filtered by the innocence of loving you.
I never noticed how betrayal fit you
like a name you’d always carried,
until it slowed my heartbeat
to something barely alive.

I would rather tear myself apart—
fingernail by fingernail—
than offer you
even one last tear.

The best of me is still ahead,
waiting where you no longer exist.
That home we built together?
Now just a hollow shell—
a place where strangers will sleep
in what once held my dreams.
Every turn of that key
will echo with what you lost.

Those memories will sting you—
sharp, relentless—
my laughter in the walls,
my smile in the silence.
You will carry me
like a ghost you can’t outrun,
haunting the edges of your sleep.

But you—
you are nothing more than a scar now.
A mark that will never hear “I love you” again.
Those words were buried
beneath choices that defined you
in all the emptiest ways.

And still—
knowing you can never have me again
is where I found my worth.
Turning you away
was where I found my strength.
The image of me leaving
will circle your heart like something hungry,
never letting go.

Let my hands bleed if they must—
as long as you remain
exactly where you belong:

my past.

JMS