The One I Forgot to Love

She waited,

not because she was idle,

but because her heart was stitched from patience,

from years of staying

for those who never learned

how to show up whole.

She had answered every whisper

before her own had the chance

to speak.

Always tending the wind in someone else's storm,

forgetting the rain in her own bones.

They praised her strength

called her fierce, called her light

but none asked how often the candle

was burning from both ends

just to give a little warmth

to the ones who never stayed long enough

to feel it.

She was both the hearth and the ash.

The sweet and the salt.

The bruised peach still fragrant

beneath its softened skin.

When the silence came,

she did not chase it.

She studied it.

She let it stretch long

like a canyon,

deep and empty enough

to echo back the truth:

She had loved everyone

but herself.

So she packed her piece

not broken,

just scattered.

Tiny remnants she had left

in every conversation unanswered,

in every pause too wide

to be coincidence.

She gathered her laughter

from voicemails never returned,

her care from quiet good mornings

left on read,

and her beauty

from mirrors she had wiped clean

for others to see themselves in.

She took it all

like wildflowers growing through concrete

delicate, but defiant.

And she moved.

Not out of anger.

Not even pain.

But out of recognition.

A quiet truth blooming inside her:

She was not the problem.

She was the field.

The rich, uneven earth

that some feet trampled

because they did not know

what it meant to be worthy

of soil that nourishes.

She is not perfect.

She forgets things.

She cries over burnt toast.

She speaks too deeply

and sometimes too soon.

But she is not made

to be waited on like an afterthought.

She is made of moon-pulled tides,

and the kind of silence

that means you're about to grow.

She is the poem

she once wrote for someone else

now written in her own name.

And as she plants her heart

in new ground,

one less burdened by other people’s lack,

she does not rise

with fireworks or fanfare.

She simply begins

to feel again.

To breathe without wondering

if her breath is too much.

She walks with the weight

of a woman who remembers

not everyone has the capacity

to love someone like her.

But she does.

And when the right ones come,

they will not flinch

at her thunder,

her sweetness,

her wild imperfections.

They will recognize the way

her roots hold galaxies

and welcome her rain

like a benediction.

Until then,

she no longer waits.

She waters herself.

She sings again.

Not for applause.

Not for company.

But because

she finally remembered

the one she kept forgetting

to love

was her.