I lost you in the winter light,
where love unraveled, thread by thread.
The echoes of our quiet fights
still linger where we used to tread.

But heartbreak, like a northern breeze,
can clear the fog, can shift the tide.
And in the wreckage, on my knees,
I found the self I’d cast aside.

Serendipitous, the way it goes,
how time heals and life reappears.
Through loss, I learned what the new me knows:
there’s beauty hidden in the tears.

Now dawn unfolds in softer hues,
the air is light, my soul is free.
I never thought that losing you
would be the way that I’d find me.

Drunk on your kisses,
swaying side to side.
wrapped in the music’s arms
held in its warm replies.
A tingly feeling rises in my chest —
Butterflies, encaged,
fluttering wild,
turning me to jelly
everywhere they rest.
In a flurry,
we spin and spin.
until the realization finally sets in.
The music fades
and I bid you adeu.
We're all temporary,
but I’m glad
I was temporary with you.
- coco

We built our love on fragile ground,
Too young to see, too proud to bow.
We held on tight yet let it fade,
Both too late, both afraid.

We spoke in riddles and taped our cracks,
Got lost in echoes with no way back.
We needed more but feared the cost,
Each unsure of what we’d lost.

The weight of silence and words unsaid
Turned love to pain, to regret instead.
You turned away, but so did I,
Too weary to even question why.

We sought out space and stood alone,
Yet too stubborn to survive on our own.
We fought our battles side by side,
But never once as unified.

You said you left to find your way,
But were you ever going to stay?
Or was it just a softer end,
A way to leave and not pretend?

Was it easier to walk away,
To tell yourself we’d had our day?
Did love dissolve, or did thoughts betray
The part of us that begged to stay?

Or did you outgrow the life we knew,
Or maybe outgrow the me with you?
Yet now I stand, a different man,
The one we needed, heart in hand.

You lit the spark that set me free,
A fire you may never see.
You pulled away but left behind
The very strength I had to find.

You told me once to face my past,
To fight my demons, make this last.
And so I have. I’ve bled, I’ve tried,
But did you ever step inside?

I see it now. You needed space,
But also a hand you wouldn’t take.
You left to find yourself, and yet,
Are you searching? …I forget.

But what if we had stayed, had tried,
Faced the storm instead of hide?
Not just alone or side by side,
But hand in hand, as unified?

Or did we need to break apart,
To lose it all, to face the dark?
To fall so low, to drown in pain,
Before we both could rise again?

You shattered me, but I see now,
I let it happen, still, somehow.
I hope in breaking, we both grew,
Despite leaving behind what we once knew.

If we had fought instead of fled,
Faced our fears, spoke words unsaid,
Would we have found what now is mine,
But shared it, side by side in time?

You shaped the change you’ll never see,
Helped draft the blueprint that’s made me, me.
And though I’ve built what we once dreamed,
It belongs to me alone, it seems.

And now I have the love we lost,
The kind we needed, at any cost.
Yet the cruelest truth remains unspoken:
We never tried, we left it broken.

If you can keep your head when all about you
  Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
  But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
  Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated don’t give way to hating,
  And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
  If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
  And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
  Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
  And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
  And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
  And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
  To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
  Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
  Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
  If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
  With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
  And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

you walked through the fire
& lived to tell the tale—
but now,
the smoke
still clings to your lungs,
& every breath feels
like a battle
you never asked to fight.