tender light
a poem
i did not lose you
the way people lose something misplaced.
i set you down gently
when my hands began to tremble
from holding onto what breaks me.
you came like a season
that never meant to stay,
soft, surprising,
arriving before I had time
to decide whether I was brave.
for a moment,
i forgot how carefully i loved.
i forgot how I wait to be chosen.
i wanted first.
and the wanting answered me,
if only briefly,
like an echo that proves a voice exists.
there was no betrayal in you,
only absence wearing confusion.
no cruelty,
just the quiet harm of someone
who does not know how to remain.
i watched the signs change
while I stayed the same,
still open, still standing,
still believing that kindness
should be met with care.
leaving was not an anger.
it was my dignity arriving early,
pulling me away
before i learned to disappear slowly.
and yet,
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after the door closed,
my heart stayed behind for a while,
lighting candles in a room
i no longer lived in.
i grieved not the person,
but the version of myself
who dared to want without armor,
who learned that desire
does not make her weak,
only awake.
i did not save you.
i did not ruin you.
i solely chose not to be
the place where your brokenness rested.
still, i am unmistakably grateful.
for all the proof.
all the spark.
all the moment I learned
that my heart can move first
and survive.
this was not a love story.
it was a dream.
A quiet one
leaning from fear into knowing.
i will carry this dream,
not the wound.
i learned, and
i will want again someday
without apology,
without retreat.
but for now,
allow me to sit with the tenderness.
allow me to remember
that even a moment of brief light
still counts as light.
