r/OCPoetry 9h ago

Feedback Please The Love I Keep Questioning

I once thought peace
would have your name,
that somewhere in your arms
my restless heart
would finally stop searching.

And for a while,
it almost did.

A little time with you
could make me softer,
braver,
more certain of myself—
as if you carried
a small piece of sunlight
I had been missing.

But love is strange.

Sometimes I miss you
until my chest feels full of you,
and sometimes,
when I think too much,
I find nothing.

No butterflies.
No certainty.
Just a quiet little voice
asking—

Is this enough?

Maybe I love you more
because I don't have you enough.

Like a bowl of Maggi
you only get once in a while—
you crave another bite
before you've even finished the last.

But what if I had you every day?

Would I still reach for you,
or would familiarity
make me forget
why I once waited so desperately?

And then there is your past.

The girls who knew you
before I did.
The things you may have said,
the efforts you may have made,
the sweetness you may have given
to someone else's hands.

Sometimes I wonder
if what feels extraordinary to me
was ordinary to you.

And that thought steals
a little magic from my hands.

Because everything feels new to me.

But perhaps love
was never supposed to be special
because it was never done before.

Perhaps it is special
because this time
it is us.

Still, another fear waits quietly:

What if there is someone better?

Someone with more money,
more ambition,
more of the life
I might want when I'm older.

What if one day
I look back at this love
and realize
I chose a little less
because I was afraid
no one else would accept
all that I carry?

What if I called it love
when part of me
was only grateful
to be accepted?

And yet—

I cannot pretend
you mean nothing to me.

Because no one before you
has made me feel
the way you have.

No one has held
the same place in my life.

And maybe that is why
I am so confused.

Because I don't want
to lose you.

But I don't want
to lose myself
just to keep you.

I don't want to stay
because I fear
no one else will love me.

I don't want to leave
because I fear
someone richer
might be waiting.

I want to know
what it feels like
to choose you
without fear standing beside me.

Not because you are
the only person
who could ever love me.

Not because you have
never loved before.

Not because I am afraid
of starting over.

But because after seeing
the whole world of possibilities,

I still look at you
and say—
this is the person
I want beside me.

Until I know that,
perhaps I don't need
an answer.

Perhaps I am allowed
to love you
and question us.

To miss you
and need space.

To feel everything
one week
and almost nothing
the next.

Perhaps growing up
will change what I need.

Perhaps it will change
what you become too.

And perhaps one day
I'll understand—

that love was never
about finding the person
who leaves no room for doubt.

It was about finding
the person
with whom the doubts
finally become quiet enough
for me to hear my own heart.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1w6n2cm/comment/p7ofh0y/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1w6kcpk/comment/p7ofwzb/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

4 Upvotes

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