There is a morning that refuses to end.
Something I’ve been trying to understand,
Something that doesn’t quite make sense until it does.
I was happy with you.
Not in a fleeting way,
Not something I could easily replace,
But something that settled into me quietly.
You felt like home.
And in that home, I found a version of myself that knew how to be happy.
Not loudly. Not temporarily.
You settled into me slowly,
like warmth returning to frozen hands,
like finding home after wandering too long
through rooms where the sound of your heart only matters
But then I saw you with them.
And I tried to deny it at first.
I tried to believe that what we had was enough.
But the truth was there, clear and undeniable.
You were happier.
Not just a little, not just in passing, but in a way that lit you up completely. The kind of happiness I had never been able to give you.
You looked lighter beside them.
Like laughter came easier.
Like the universe had finally placed you where you were always supposed to be.
And I understood something terrible,
Love does not always ask to be chosen.
Sometimes it only asks to witness.
And that was the moment everything changed.
Because in choosing your happiness, I had to let go of mine.
I didn’t just lose you.
I lost the only place where my happiness knew how to exist.
The days after felt unfamiliar.
Quiet in the wrong ways.
Heavy in places that used to feel full.
It was like learning how to live without something I had already built my world around.
Like carrying a life that no longer carried me back.
And yet, even in that emptiness, something remains.
A loophole.
Because as much as I have lost my own happiness,
As much as I am still trying to find where I belong without you,
I cannot separate myself from the way I love you.
And the way I love you has always meant this---
That your happiness matters more than mine ever did.
So when I see you now,
When I see you smiling the way you do with them,
When I see you living in the kind of joy I could never give,
Something in me still responds.
It hurts. It really does.
Like reopening a wound
that healed incorrectly.
But it is also the only proof
that some part of me remains alive.
And maybe that is the punishment.
Not that I lost you,
But that every new day forces me to survive you again,
While still loving you enough to be grateful
that you found the happiness
I could not become.
But at the same time, it gives me something to hold onto.
Because if I can no longer be happy for myself,
I can still be happy for you.
The quiet, unbearable comfort
of knowing that as long as you are happy,
a fragment of me is too.
And maybe that is the cruelest, most beautiful part of all.
That even after losing you, even after losing the happiness I once had, I am not left with nothing.
I am left with that loophole.
The quiet, aching truth that as long as you are happy,
a part of me still is too.
Not whole.
Not the way it used to be.
Not enough to escape this loop.
Not enough to call it healing.
But enough to wake up again.
Enough to keep going.
May 10
May 10, 2026 at 12:29 PM UTC
There is a morning that refuses to end.
Something I’ve been trying to understand,
Something that doesn’t quite make sense until it does.
I was happy with you.
Not in a fleeting way,
Not something I could easily replace,
But something that settled into me quietly.
You felt like home.
And in that home, I found a version of myself that knew how to be happy.
Not loudly. Not temporarily.
You settled into me slowly,
like warmth returning to frozen hands,
like finding home after wandering too long
through rooms where the sound of your heart only matters
But then I saw you with them.
And I tried to deny it at first.
I tried to believe that what we had was enough.
But the truth was there, clear and undeniable.
You were happier.
Not just a little, not just in passing, but in a way that lit you up completely. The kind of happiness I had never been able to give you.
You looked lighter beside them.
Like laughter came easier.
Like the universe had finally placed you where you were always supposed to be.
And I understood something terrible,
Love does not always ask to be chosen.
Sometimes it only asks to witness.
And that was the moment everything changed.
Because in choosing your happiness, I had to let go of mine.
I didn’t just lose you.
I lost the only place where my happiness knew how to exist.
The days after felt unfamiliar.
Quiet in the wrong ways.
Heavy in places that used to feel full.
It was like learning how to live without something I had already built my world around.
Like carrying a life that no longer carried me back.
And yet, even in that emptiness, something remains.
A loophole.
Because as much as I have lost my own happiness,
As much as I am still trying to find where I belong without you,
I cannot separate myself from the way I love you.
And the way I love you has always meant this---
That your happiness matters more than mine ever did.
So when I see you now,
When I see you smiling the way you do with them,
When I see you living in the kind of joy I could never give,
Something in me still responds.
It hurts. It really does.
Like reopening a wound
that healed incorrectly.
But it is also the only proof
that some part of me remains alive.
And maybe that is the punishment.
Not that I lost you,
But that every new day forces me to survive you again,
While still loving you enough to be grateful
that you found the happiness
I could not become.
But at the same time, it gives me something to hold onto.
Because if I can no longer be happy for myself,
I can still be happy for you.
The quiet, unbearable comfort
of knowing that as long as you are happy,
a fragment of me is too.
And maybe that is the cruelest, most beautiful part of all.
That even after losing you, even after losing the happiness I once had, I am not left with nothing.
I am left with that loophole.
The quiet, aching truth that as long as you are happy,
a part of me still is too.
Not whole.
Not the way it used to be.
Not enough to escape this loop.
Not enough to call it healing.
But enough to wake up again.
Enough to keep going.
The never-ending loop of yearning and grief of what was once a beautiful and loving memory.
Request permission to use this poem