This is the last time I write your name
with anything other than silence.
The last time I let memory
dress up as love
and climb back into my chest.

I gave you my teens
fifteen to Twenty—
years I can’t get back,
but years I no longer want.

You taught me how to ache,
how to beg without speaking,
how to love someone
who never chose me fully.
And in return,
I taught myself how to survive.

I held the door open
through every lie,
every “it didn’t mean anything,”
every look you gave
that wasn’t mine.

But now I see
you were a lesson,
not a lifetime.

You're a name with dust on it now,
a voice I don't chase in dreams.
You're not her anymore,
and I'm not him.

You chose your path.
You built your life.
And I'm finally walking out of the past
without waiting for you to follow.

So this is goodbye
not loud, not cruel,
just final.

No more poems.
No more “what ifs.”
Just peace
where your name used to live.

I remember her
blonde hair kissed by blue,
like she dipped her crown
in the sky
just to feel infinite.

Eyes the color of clear days,
but storms lived there
I just pretended not to drown.

We were a rhythm,
offbeat and breaking,
on again,
off again,
from fifteen to twenty,
I called it love.
She called when bored.

She said I was different
and maybe I was,
because I stayed
when I should’ve run,
believed her
when I shouldn’t have trusted
even the silence.

Two others.
Two names I never wanted to know.
She said they were “mistakes,”
but they both left fingerprints
on the life we tried to grow.

And now she’s married
to one of them.
Has a child
with his name,
while I’m still here
writing poems
just to remember
that I mattered,
once.

Was I never enough?
Or just too much of the wrong kind?
I gave her every soft part of me,
and she taught me
how it feels
to break quietly.

I see photos of them now—
smiling like we never existed.
And I wonder
if she ever thinks of me
when the baby cries,
or when her world gets quiet,
or if she locked me away
in the same box
where she kept all her
guilt.

Either way,
she chose him.
And I’m left
trying not to wonder
why.

She moved like summer chasing light,
With golden hair and streaks of night
Blue slashed bold across her crown,
A storm disguised in a party town.

Her eyes were oceans—deep, untrue,
They pulled me in, then split in two.
I swore I saw forever there,
But she was never really where.

We crashed and kissed in cycles spun,
From 2014 to ‘19 done.
I called it love, she called it “try,”
But kept her truths beneath the lie.

While I held on, she held their hands,
Two others, promises like sand.
I stayed through storms, I played the fool
She broke the rules, rewrote the rule.

Still I believed, still I forgave,
Still I mistook the wound for brave.
Each time she left, I took her back,
Blind to the knife still in my back.

Now she wears a wedding ring
Not mine, but his… the other thing.
They’ve built a life, a child too,
While I sit ghosting in the blue.

Was I just training for her fate?
A stepping stone she learned to hate?
Or maybe love was never real
Just something broken she could feel.

I ask myself if I was weak,
Or just too human, far too meek.
Because part of me still aches, still tries
To forget her name
and her summer eyes.

I swore I'd walk away this time,
left your ghost outside my door,
But love’s a drug I can't outrun,
and I’m crawling back for more.

Your voice still lives inside my head,
like a song I can't erase,
Every echo cuts me deeper
still I long to feel your face.

We break, we bend, we fall apart,
then stitch the hurt with hope,
And just when I start breathing clear,
you pull me back to choke.

It’s not love, it’s not survival,
it's a cycle dressed in flame,
You burn me just enough to stay
and I keep playing the game.

I hate the way I need this,
how pain feels close to real,
But emptiness is louder
when I forget how not to feel.

So here I am again tonight,
repeating all I swore was through,
Over and over, I lose myself
just trying to get back to you.

The quiet hits louder when you’re gone,
Like your name etched in every song.
The bed’s still cold on just one side,
And I fake sleep so I don’t cry.

I held your hand in borrowed time,
While you looked ahead and left me behind.
You moved on like it was breath,
While I’m still choking on what’s left.

They said time heals, but they don’t know
That some hearts beat just to feel low.
And every smile I try to fake
Cracks beneath the love you take.

You said I’d be okay someday,
But I was never built that way.
You were my peace, my steady light
Now I’m just shadows in the night.

You laugh in rooms I’ll never see,
With someone else where I should be.
And I’m still here, dressed in regret,
Trying to relive the night we met.

So I whisper to the empty air,
Tell myself you still might care.
But truth is sharp, it doesn’t bend
You were my always,
I was your end.