I came to say goodbye to you today,
believing closure might quiet the storm—
that one last look, one final word,
might let my heart walk forward unharmed.

But seeing you again
only tangled the threads tighter.

The way you look at me
moves through my body from the outside in,
like something ancient recognizing its name,
like gravity remembering the moon.
And I don’t know how to stop answering it.

How do I stop wanting
to be seen by you—
not just looked at,
but known?
How do I quiet the hunger
to be wanted back?

I told you why I had to leave.
For a moment your face changed—
a shadow of sadness passing through it.
Maybe I imagined it.
Maybe I needed to believe it was real.

Because I know the truth you carry:
regret follows you after every time you give in to our chemistry.

And mine is the opposite.

Where you walk away wishing it hadn’t happened,
I walk away wanting it again—
and again—
and again.

You touched something in me
no one else ever has,
and maybe that is the danger.

Maybe that is the gravity.

This isn’t a rebound for me.
You were the first door I ever opened
to this part of myself.
So every feeling arrives
raw, unarmored,
burning with the shock of being new.

When you looked at me
it felt like you could see through my ribs,
straight into the quiet places
I keep hidden from everyone else.

And I had to leave.

Because I cannot survive
being that visible to you again.

I don’t want to burden your life
with the weight of my heart.
But when you said you wanted to hug me,
my resolve cracked.

For a moment
it felt like the whole world
could stop
inside your arms.

Even your body betrayed you—
the way it reacted to mine,
the way the air between us
grew charged and dangerous.

How do you say goodbye
to something like that?

How do you choose silence—
no contact—
no knowing the shape of your days,
no fragments of you
reaching me anymore?

The thought of never seeing
any small piece of who you are again
settles into my bones
like winter.

If someone had told me
on that cold winter day
that I would feel this way about you,

I would have laughed.

But I’m not laughing now.

I’m standing here
in the quiet after goodbye,
missing you                                                          and breaking slowly
over the thought that you will never miss me at all.

JMS