Julie Diles Poet Free verse

I Was Loving a Possibility

I was not loving you.
Not really.
I was loving a possibility.
A future I built with trembling hands?from fragments you left behind.
A version of us that existed nowhere?except in the quiet corners of my hope.
I loved the way I imagined you would stay.
The way I imagined you would choose me?once the timing was right.
Once the fear passed.
Once life settled down.
Once you realized what I had been trying so desperately to show you.
There was always a once.
Always a reason to wait.
Always another chapter I was certain would be different.
So I held on.
Not to what was.
But to what could be.
And that was the tragedy.
Because reality kept introducing itself.
Again and again.
In delayed replies.
In empty promises.
In affection that arrived just often enough?to keep me from leaving.
In moments when I felt more alone beside you?than I ever did by myself.
But hope is a persuasive liar.
It can take the smallest act of kindness?and build an entire future around it.
It can turn crumbs into evidence.
Silence into mystery.
Distance into depth.
And I was starving enough to believe it.
So every time you pulled away,
I reached for the version of you?that existed only in my imagination.
The version that loved me back.
The version that saw me clearly.
The version that would someday arrive?and make all the waiting make sense.
I kept loving that person.
Even when the real you?kept failing to show up.
And the hardest part is this:
I knew.
Somewhere beneath all the excuses,
I knew.
I knew love should not feel like constant uncertainty.
I knew care should not have to be deciphered.
I knew I should not have to convince myself?that I mattered.
But I wanted the possibility so badly
that I kept negotiating with reality.
Kept rewriting the ending.
Kept giving chances to someone?who was never holding the same story.
I thought I was fighting for love.
What I was really doing
was grieving something
that had never existed.
Because you cannot lose a relationship
that was never truly there.
But you can lose the dream of one.
And sometimes,
that hurts even more.
Because there is no one to blame.
No dramatic goodbye.
No moment where everything shatters at once.
Just the slow, devastating realization
that the person you were waiting for
was never coming.
That the future you pictured
was built from longing,
not promises.
From hope,
not reality.
And suddenly,
all those months,
all those prayers,
all those second chances,
all those nights spent believing tomorrow would be different,
collapse under the weight of the truth.
You were not standing at the edge of a love story.
You were standing at the edge of your own heartbreak.
Holding flowers
for someone
who was never on their way.
And when that realization finally reached me,
it did not break my heart because I lost you.
It broke my heart because I lost myself.
I lost pieces of my confidence
waiting to be chosen.
I lost pieces of my voice
making excuses.
I lost pieces of my worth
trying to prove I was enough
for someone who had already decided
not to stay.
The grief was not in your leaving.
The grief was in discovering
how long I had abandoned myself
for the possibility
that one day
you might stop leaving too.
And there is no heartbreak quite like that.
No ache quite as deep
as looking back
and realizing
the person I was desperately trying to save
was never you.
It was me.

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