I’m here today to say goodbye
to a love that isn’t dead
but damn sure isn’t mine anymore.
No casket.
No lilies.
Just the ghost of your laugh
echoing in my ribs
and the echo
hurts more than the silence.
This isn’t a funeral.
It’s a letting go ceremony.
An un-wedding.
An unwinding of vows we never spoke aloud
but carved into habits,
into routines,
into grocery lists
and playlists
and promises like:
"Let’s never lose this."
We did.
I stand here, heart in hand
not bleeding,
but bruised in all the ways you can’t see on an X-ray.
This grief is quiet.
Polite.
Still does the dishes.
Still asks about your day
even when you're just a name on a screen now.
See, you didn’t leave.
You just…
changed rooms in my life
without telling me
which door you went through.
And I’ve been opening the wrong ones ever since.
I miss you
like a song I used to love
but now can’t listen to
because it knows too much about me.
I miss us
not the chaos
not the breakdowns
not the holding-on-for-dear-life versions of us
I miss
the way you used to look at me
like I was something
holy.
Now I’m just
haunting my own hope.
So today, I light this poem
like a candle.
I let it burn
for all the versions of us
that might have been.
And I say this, soft but sure:
You were
a chapter.
A damn good one, maybe the best.
But the story keeps going,
and I’ve got pens to bleed,
pages to turn,
people to meet
who might finally
stay.
I’ll always love you.
But I don’t have to carry you.
And maybe that
is the most loving thing I’ve ever done.