The Two Selves of One Heart
"Love sometimes lingers between the selves we are and the selves we lose."
There was a time when everything was simple:
our days braided together,
her laughter bright as morning,
her care a place I could rest in.
That self of hers was real –
open handed, warm, alive in the present.
But another self emerged,
quiet as a shadow
slipping across a doorway.
She answered less, then not at all,
speaking only in the past tense
as if love were a season already gone.
That self was real too –
closed, distant, unreachable.
The past was real.
The ending was unreal.
Both truths stand.
I loved the self who met me in the light.
I was abandoned by the self
who could not bear the weight of endings.
They are the same person,
but not the same self –
one who opened the door,
and one who locked it.
And I, standing between them,
kept calling to the first
while the second held the silence.
This is the shape of what happened:
not a failure of love,
but a fracture of selves –
hers shifting away,
mine still reaching for the truth.
Jan 15
Jan 15, 2026 at 11:13 AM UTC
The Two Selves of One Heart
"Love sometimes lingers between the selves we are and the selves we lose."
There was a time when everything was simple:
our days braided together,
her laughter bright as morning,
her care a place I could rest in.
That self of hers was real –
open handed, warm, alive in the present.
But another self emerged,
quiet as a shadow
slipping across a doorway.
She answered less, then not at all,
speaking only in the past tense
as if love were a season already gone.
That self was real too –
closed, distant, unreachable.
The past was real.
The ending was unreal.
Both truths stand.
I loved the self who met me in the light.
I was abandoned by the self
who could not bear the weight of endings.
They are the same person,
but not the same self –
one who opened the door,
and one who locked it.
And I, standing between them,
kept calling to the first
while the second held the silence.
This is the shape of what happened:
not a failure of love,
but a fracture of selves –
hers shifting away,
mine still reaching for the truth.
This poem explores the quiet tension between the selves we show and the selves we withdraw, especially in the space where love begins to fracture. It is an attempt to hold two truths at once: the beauty of connection and the inevitability of distance, without blaming either self.
Request permission to use this poem