I met you at a fragile hour in my life—

a quiet, unguarded season where the walls I had built stood thinner than they had in years.

You arrived without warning, yet with a kind of gentleness that felt like recognition.

You saw me. Or at least, you made me believe that you did.

And in that illusion of safety, I placed my trust in you—fully, and without hesitation.

For so long, my heart had been something I kept under careful watch,

a sacred space shaped by loss, by force, by the echoes of something taken too soon.

But with you, I loosened my grip.

I offered it—not carelessly, but willingly—

and you accepted it as though it were yours to hold, again and again,

you just stepped into that space like you had always known the way in.

You told me, in quiet ways, that what we were was fleeting—

and yet, through touch, through closeness, through the unspoken language between us,

you let it feel like permanence.

You blurred the truth with warmth,

until all I could focus on was the gravity of you—

the way your presence pulled at me,

the way my pulse betrayed me each time you returned.

If I had listened—truly listened—I might have spared myself

the slow unraveling that came with losing you.

Because in the end, it was never you who would walk away.

It was always going to be me.

I told you I needed to let you go.

I said it plainly, though it cost me more than I let you see.

And yet, somehow, I remained—

bending, reshaping, diminishing into someone I could barely recognize,

all in the hope that you might finally choose me fully.

But you never did.

Instead, you held me in suspension—

not close enough to claim, not distant enough to release—

like something convenient, something temporary, something you could return to at will.

I spoke, but you did not hear me.

Or perhaps we both chose not to hear what would end us.

It was as if we had learned to communicate only in silence, in touch—

in everything but truth.

But now, I will let you go.

Not loudly, not bitterly—

just completely.

You may not know it yet, but that last moment was the end.

And one day, when absence settles where I once stood,

you will reach for me and find only space.

You will feel the shape of what is missing.

And I hope, in that quiet, you remember—

not just that you had me,

but that you never truly held me.

Because I am not something to be kept in fragments,

nor only when it is easy.

I am not replaceable, not temporary, not half-worthy.

I was always more than that.

And perhaps the hardest truth to carry is this:

even now, as I walk away,

there is a part of me that still cannot believe

this is where our story ends.

JMS