The Person I Still Love
What happens when the person who once felt like forever
is still standing in front of you — but you can no longer
find the person you fell in love with?
An Original Lyrmotion poem inspired by the emotional world of Maxton Hall
I opened my heart.
And somehow,
before I knew it,
you became my Now.
You wrote yourself
into my heart,
and I wished our love
could have stayed forever.
I wished
we could simply love
in a world
where everyone
seems to wear a mask.
Sometimes I wonder
if I should have run
before I loved you.
Because whenever
our eyes meet,
whenever something
between our souls
remembers what love felt like,
my heart forgets
how many times
you broke it.
I built walls
out of reason.
I taught my heart
to become quieter.
Less trusting.
Less hopeful.
Less yours.
Because a heart
cannot be broken
again and again
without one day
fearing
it might never
be whole again.
You were my Now.
Then somehow
you became my Someday.
And the person
I once imagined as Forever
became the person
I had to call Never Again.
And still —
whenever tears
kiss my cheeks,
I think of you.
I love you.
And perhaps
that is exactly
what hurts:
I love you,
yet I no longer
recognize you.
I would give
every one of my tears
if they could somehow
lead me back
to the person I once knew.
Back to you.
But there is no way back.
You were my happiness.
And now
I look at you and wonder
where the person I loved
has gone.
So I build another façade.
Protection.
Perfection.
Distraction.
Anything
that might keep my heart
from reaching for you.
And then
you look at me.
Just once.
And every wall
I carefully built
forgets how to stand.
For one moment,
I see you again.
I want to be close to you.
I want to believe
that somewhere beneath
everything that changed,
you are still there.
And yet,
standing beside you
can make me feel more alone
than being without you.
Because you are
no longer
who you were.
And I cannot
keep breaking myself
just because
I still love you.
Love should not
require a heart
to disappear
in order to stay.
So no —
I don't need another promise.
I don't need another Forever.
There is only
one thing
I still wish for:
find yourself.
Find the person
I once recognized
in your eyes.
Find the person
you were
before pain taught you
to forget him.
And perhaps,
if somewhere
between you finding yourself
and me learning to heal,
our eyes meet again,
we might find what we lost.
You.
Me.
Us.
Now.
Forever.