The Letter He Wrote

Words from a past lover turned into poetry

When you loved me,
it felt like something eternal
was making room for you inside me.
My demons stepped back
to let your light into the dark.

You looked at me
like I was a question finally answered,
like your heart had already decided
I was home.
And I let you believe that.

Even when I knew
my heart was too damaged
to hold something so delicate
without staining it black.

I loved you
with awe and urgency,
like the clock was ticking
and I was the fault line
trying not to split the ground beneath your feet.

You were sweet
in a way that made me tighten inside,
not just from longing,
but from guilt.
From wanting to touch you
in every place
you still trusted the world.

There was a part of you
that hadn’t been ruined yet.
And I wanted it.
I wanted to lay you down
and taste the part of you
that still believed in good things.

To trace wonder across your skin
and commit its texture to memory.
To press my mouth
against the parts of you
that hadn’t yet learned to flinch.

I wanted to hold you
until the light you carried
spilled into me.
Until your softness
felt like forgiveness
against everything wrecked in me.

You softened in my arms,
still untouched
by all the things that had hardened me,
and I didn’t protect that softness.
I fed off it.
Let it make me feel
like I belonged to something unspoiled.

You deserved steadier hands.
A mouth
that didn’t kiss
like it had never tasted truth.

And I…
I just wanted to crawl inside you
and stay there,
where it was warm and quiet,
and my hurt couldn’t follow.

But love like that
isn’t salvation.
It’s a mirror.
And what I saw in your eyes
wasn’t redemption,
it was the reflection
of a man who could never be
what you believed he was.

So I let you fall into me
while I fell apart.
I let you love me
like I wasn’t a landslide
with a heartbeat.

And now,
I hear your name in rooms
you’ve never walked into.
See flickers of you in strangers
who will never know why I stare.
I carry you like an unanswered prayer
I’m still too unclean to utter.

And maybe that’s the curse,
to have been loved by you
and know I turned grace
into grief.

But if I could go back…
I wouldn’t ask for your heart again.
I’d ask for the strength
to deserve it.