“What I Carried Quietly”

I carried your memory quietly,
like a stone in my chest,
The kind of weight silence gives
when there’s too much left unsaid.
It’s not that I need you to come back.
I needed you to care
while you were still here,
even when you’re far.

When I spoke of pain,
you spoke of defense.
Not once did you ask
what it cost me to stay.
You guarded your pride
while I stood there bare,
hoping for kindness and empathy,
finding only cold air.

I am not begging.
I am not broken.
But I am honest.
I only ever wanted to matter to you.
Not in some dramatic way,
Just in the quiet way people cherish
what they don’t want to lose,
the memory they once shared.

And now, I see the shift.
I experience the distance.
I feel the absence
where warmth used to be.
He fills the space I once held.
I have become a shadow
where I once was light.

You are whole now, it seems.
Complete.
Satisfied.
And I, forgettable.
A name that no longer stirs
anything in you.

But I remember.
And I release.
Not in bitterness.
Mostly for myself.
And for a new start.

So this is not a plea,
Just a letting go.
Of waiting.
Of wondering.
Of longing.
Of wishing.

I wish you peace.
I wish me peace, too.
I wish you rest.
I wish me rest, too.