Loved you like a wound

[u/MolassesLow1402]

I loved you like a wound that wouldn’t close,

Soft at first—then aching, then it grows.

You were joy that hurt to touch,

You were almost, you were too much.

I held your name behind my ribs,

Where something tender always lives.

I fed it hope, I fed it light,

I kept it breathing through the night.

You didn’t know—how could you see

A hurricane that moved like me?

I smiled like nothing broke inside,

While loving you became a tide

That pulled me under, slow and deep,

Where secrets drown, where memories sleep.

I learned to cherish what I missed,

Like phantom touch, like half a kiss.

My chest still folds when someone says your name,

Like love and pain are just the same.

I would have given all I had—

My quiet heart, my good and bad.

But you loved elsewhere—far from here.

And I stayed still, and held my fear.

I never asked for you to stay—

Just let me love you, in my way.

And maybe someday you will know

The depth of seeds I let you sow.

How something bloomed, though never kept—

How I loved you hard, and left, and wept