Honey, you said you loved me;

And I believed you,

Even when your silence grew louder than yours

I held on to your broken promises,

Wore them like old letters folded too many times.

I knew you weren’t staying,

But part of me still hoped you would.

We loved like fire in the rain,

Flickering, beautiful - impossible.

You wanted warmth without the burn,

And I wanted forever in a moment.

In the end,

We both asked for something the other couldn’t give.

When you left me there,

I didn’t scream.

I just stayed there,

Like a photograph forgotten in a drawer.

Falling apart felt quiet,

Like petals drifting in the midnight air.

I reached for you in my dreams,

But I don’t want to reach anymore,

Not to lose you all over again.

The heart still aches;

Not out of need,

But from the echo of what once felt whole.

Like an ember in the ashes

It no longer burns,

But remember.

I still carry the softness;

Your laugh, your hands,

The way your eyes once held me.

Even now, love lingers in the corners of me

I no longer visit.

Goodbye;

Not in anger,

But in quiet knowing.

Goodbye to you,

Who tried but couldn’t stay.

Goodbye to me,

Who waited, who hoped, who let go.

We weren’t meant to last,

But we were meant to burn.

And though the flame is gone,

Its warmth is still felt

In the quiet corners of me.

That, in its own way,

Was enough.