THE HABIT OF YOU
Maybe that was my mistake.
I fell too deep.
This is where regret finds me.
Not for the heartbreak,
because somewhere along the way
I knew
I was building a home
inside a fantasy.
Not for how I let you
get closer.
Not for how you became
hope,
comfort,
possibility,
curiosity,
a future I stitched together
from glances and silence,
someone I wanted
to understand me,
someone whose opinion
settled in my chest
and stayed.
No.
I regret that I told you.
And survived it.
I could have left you
as a simple "hello."
A passing face.
A passing voice.
But I let you touch
the hidden rooms of me,
the parts I never knew existed
until they carried your name.
My mornings became you.
My evenings became you.
Every quiet space
echoed with you.
And now
I do not know how to live
without the thing
I made of you.
What I harboured in me
was not small.
It was an ocean
pretending to be a secret.
So now
I must return to myself.
Gather the pieces
I left in your hands.
Unlearn the habit
of searching for you
in every corner of my day.
Take a step back
from this slow ache,
from loving you
like a wound
I kept reopening.
Maybe you were never mine.
Maybe you were only
the mirror
that showed me
how deeply I could fall.
If you ever need me,
you will find me.
Not waiting.
Not reaching.
Just there.
A little farther away
than before.
@Lord_richie