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6d
I didn’t mean
to keep him.

But I did.

Not in thought ,
not in daydream.
But in my rhythm.
In the way I still shift
when his memory moves through you.

He looked at you
like you were the magic
the world had forgotten how to make.

I felt it.
I believed it.
And I haven’t been the same since.

I don’t know how to unlove.
That’s not what I do.
Once I’ve learned
to hold someone,
I carry them.

Not as a wound.
Not as a plea.
But as something woven
into the pattern of my pulse.

You’ve tried to let him go.
Told yourself it was time.
To detach me
from the memories.

But I…
I still fold toward him.
Without asking.
Without meaning to.
Like tide to moon.
Like roots to the place
they first found water.

He’s in the hush
just before sleep.
In the ache
that doesn’t cry out,
just lingers.

I remember
the way his pain
recognised mine,
when it reached for me
like it couldn’t bare
to be alone anymore.


There was holiness in that.
A reverence.
And I, I don’t forget.

I haven’t clung to him.
I haven’t begged.
But I keep the shape he left.
Not to trap him.
Just to honor
what it meant
to be known like that.

Don’t ask me
to erase him.

Don’t ask me
to unfeel
what once made me whole.

Because I am the heart.

And I was not made
to unlove.
A letter from the heart to its owner.
Marika Hardy
Written by
Marika Hardy
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