My Dearest,
You did not have to turn around for me to love you.
I loved you even when my eyes dared not meet yours.
I loved you in ways that the most accomplished poet could scarce articulate.
I loved you enough to know that water may kiss sand, but can never claim it.
I became fluent in restraint:
in measured tones,
in silent imaginings,
in the subtle whisper of a heart’s lament, known to itself alone.
I swallowed every confession
before it could pass my lips.
I turned longing into gentle discourse,
hope into the mere courtesy of words.
You only ever encountered
the calm, composed version of me.
You never glimpsed
the one who wept quietly afterwards,
nor the one who lingered, unseen,
upon the brink of some tender despair.
Some loves, my dear, are not destined to be chosen.
They are not meant for triumph, nor for flourish, nor for declaration.
They are to be endured,
like the lingering shadow of twilight
that drapes itself over the parlor long after the sun’s retreat,
like the faint perfume of rose that lingers in empty halls,
felt only by the solitary heart brave enough to bear it.
And so, at last, I write to you to release you,
to relinquish you from the chambers of my mind,
and, in so doing, to free myself.
And thus I loved you quietly,
softly, inexorably,
as one might love a secret kept,
or a cherished book that must never be opened aloud.
Feb 13
Feb 13, 2026 at 11:09 AM UTC
My Dearest,
You did not have to turn around for me to love you.
I loved you even when my eyes dared not meet yours.
I loved you in ways that the most accomplished poet could scarce articulate.
I loved you enough to know that water may kiss sand, but can never claim it.
I became fluent in restraint:
in measured tones,
in silent imaginings,
in the subtle whisper of a heart’s lament, known to itself alone.
I swallowed every confession
before it could pass my lips.
I turned longing into gentle discourse,
hope into the mere courtesy of words.
You only ever encountered
the calm, composed version of me.
You never glimpsed
the one who wept quietly afterwards,
nor the one who lingered, unseen,
upon the brink of some tender despair.
Some loves, my dear, are not destined to be chosen.
They are not meant for triumph, nor for flourish, nor for declaration.
They are to be endured,
like the lingering shadow of twilight
that drapes itself over the parlor long after the sun’s retreat,
like the faint perfume of rose that lingers in empty halls,
felt only by the solitary heart brave enough to bear it.
And so, at last, I write to you to release you,
to relinquish you from the chambers of my mind,
and, in so doing, to free myself.
And thus I loved you quietly,
softly, inexorably,
as one might love a secret kept,
or a cherished book that must never be opened aloud.