After all the love I gave you,
I can never hate you.
I tried.
God knows I tried.
I searched for anger
the way someone digs through old drawers
looking for something sharp enough
to cut the memories apart.
But every time I reach for it,
I find you instead,
laughing in the kitchen,
your hand on the back of my neck,
the quiet way you said my name
like it was something fragile.
You broke me.
There is no gentler word for it.
You took the parts of me
that trusted easily
and left them out in the cold
like they would somehow learn
how to survive without warmth.
And still,
after all the love I gave you,
I can never hate you.
I hate the silence you left.
I hate the empty chair.
I hate how every ordinary place
is haunted by a version of us
that no longer exists.
But you…
I remember the weight of your head on my chest,
the way you softened in sleep,
how for a moment
the whole world seemed to believe in us.
Maybe that’s the curse of loving someone deeply:
even when they leave,
even when they ruin you,
the love refuses to turn into something smaller.
So I carry it.
Not because you deserve it anymore,
but because once,
in a life that feels very far away now,
you were
the safest place
my heart had ever known.
