I will not hate you

I loved you before the silence found your name,
before goodbye settled into the walls we built.
Some wounds never stop aching,
they simply learn to breathe with us.
You hurt me in ways
I never thought love could.
You left pieces of me
scattered where only you knew to look.
Still, I cannot teach my heart to hate you.
It refuses every lesson.
It remembers your laughter
more easily than your mistakes.
If the world carries you
to places where I cannot follow,
I hope it is gentle.
I hope it gives you
the peace we could never find together.
I’ll wait, not because I expect your footsteps
to find their way back to my door,
but because some promises
are kept in silence instead of spoken aloud.
I know you may never return.
I know tomorrow may become years,
and years may become forever.
Even then,
my love will ask for nothing.
No apology.
No explanation.
No second chance.
Only that somewhere beneath the same sky,
you live,
you heal,
and you smile without carrying the weight
of what became of us.
Loving you was never my greatest sorrow.
Losing the future I imagined with you was.
So I’ll carry your memory
without bitterness,
without revenge,
without hate.
Some loves are not meant to be held.
They are meant to be honored,
quietly,
until the heart grows old enough
to call the pain beautiful.