The Mercy of Letting Go

I loved you

as a drowning man loves the shore—

not because the shore belonged to him,

but because, for a moment,

it gave his suffering a name.

And perhaps that was my mistake.

I wanted to keep you

because losing you felt like losing

the part of myself

that had learned to exist beside you.

But love, I have discovered,

is not always the hand that holds.

Sometimes it is the hand

that trembles as it opens.

So I let you go.

Not because I stopped loving you,

but because I finally understood

that a soul cannot be loved

into belonging.

You were never a possession.

You were a chapter

I was fortunate enough to read—

and chapters, however beautiful,

must sometimes end

so that the book may remain honest.

Tonight, I miss you.

But I no longer ask the universe

to return what it has taken.

Perhaps this is what growing is:

to carry someone in your heart

without demanding

that they remain in your life.

And if somewhere, someday,

you remember me,

I hope you remember this—

I did not let you go

because you meant little.

I let you go

because you meant enough

to deserve freedom.