I Gave My Heart to You

I gave my heart to you,

you fed it to the dogs.

And maybe that is what hurts the most

not that you broke it,

but that you knew exactly

how precious it was to me

and still handed it over

without looking back.

I was your wife.

Do you remember?

I wasn't just a woman who loved you.

I was the woman who built her life

around the sound of your footsteps,

who waited for you,

prayed for you,

made excuses for you

when I should have been making excuses

for myself.

I knew your silences.

Your moods.

The way you breathed when you were angry.

The things you never said

but expected me to understand.

I knew you.

And somewhere along the way,

you stopped knowing me.

You stopped seeing the woman

who stood beside you

when nobody else did.

You stopped seeing the wife

who swallowed her tears

so you could sleep peacefully.

I don't think you will ever understand

how many times I died quietly

inside that marriage

just to keep it alive.

I mourn you now.

Not because you're gone from this world,

but because the man I loved

is gone from the man you became.

And that's a strange kind of grief.

There is no funeral.

No grave to visit.

No flowers to carry.

Just memories.

Your side of the bed

that doesn't feel like yours anymore.

Old photographs

that now feel like evidence

from a life I don't recognize.

The promises you once made

that now sound almost cruel.

Sometimes I still want to tell you

about my day.

Then I remember

that you're the reason

I learned how to keep things to myself.

I gave you everything I knew how to give.

My loyalty.

My patience.

My forgiveness.

My youth.

My home.

My heart.

And you fed my heart to the dogs

as if it had never belonged to a woman

who loved you with everything she had.

I don't hate you.

I wish I did.

Hate would be easier.

I just mourn

the woman I was when I loved you,

the home I thought we were building,

the future I kept imagining,

and the man I thought

I would grow old beside.

Maybe one day

I will stop mourning you.

But tonight,

I am still grieving

someone who is still alive.

And perhaps

that is the cruelest kind of goodbye.