love poems
Love poems for hopeless romantics; I'm the poet and you're my muse.
Recalibration
I loved you to death. I smothered you with remarks of kindness. I gave you what you did not need and expected it to be reciprocated. I overstepped boundaries while never enforcing my own. You couldn't breathe without me asphyxiating you with my presence. There was a massive fear of being without you that I somehow overcame. It took sudden clarity and passive time to announce my departure. I refused the expiration date for our relationship but anxiety could not be the band aid for our separate and invisible wounds. My intuition sense this would all collapse with you mimicking sand, slipping through my desperate fingers. It was so fragile that love itself could not sustain it. Something so precious living on borrowed time. I'll never be sure if you couldn't or just wouldn't. Whether you lacked the capacity or the desire to see this through. I've allowed myself permission to grieve for what never was going to be. Your autonomy was more important than my stability. Both could not occur while we were in close proximity. I wanted to create a safe space for you but you chose your freedom instead. You were the wind that couldn't be captured for fear it would lose itself in commitment limbo. Regulating me would have a cruel punishment for you. You could hardly regulate yourself. I'll mourn the intimacy that threatened your composure. You cannot give beyond your own limits though I lowered my standards for you. I thought that's what love wanted from me. To accept what little I could receive and be happy with the results. As long as you could call yourself mine, we were fine. I was the time you could spare but you couldn't afford more. Devotion is not enough if it only suffocated you. I used my loyalty as a way to suppress you and I didn't realize it. I can't choose someone who could not choose me. You were dizzy with vertigo because I demanded more than you could deliver. If I loved you enough, everything would have worked out in the end. I couldn't be myself around you. The chase is what drew me in but you only kept escaping. This rejection has to become unstitched. The haze has been lifted. The fog of inconsistency has evaporated. You weren't perfect though I brainwashed myself into believing you were. I'm still taking the blame for all of our faults. It was the end of the world for a while. You squandered me and you took me for granted. Why didn't you want me when you had me? We couldn't find the right direction together. I couldn't take the blinders from off my eyes. You took matters into your hands and decided for the both of us. I was quietly discarded because our harmony turned cacophonous. My arms are exhausted from pointing the finger at you for the fallout I alone am experiencing. I loved you to bittersweet death. You created this rift, this great divide. I cannot cross and join you on the other side because you chose not to be mine. You were never mine. The universe knows I tried.
By Anna Torres3 months ago in Poets
POETS
This is another of my poems that I left marinating. It has been a few months, and I looked it over and decided to publish it. I made a couple of edits-a word here, an add there then I had CoPilot analyze it for me and this was it's core takeaway- "This poem is about the absurdity and holiness of being a poet — the ego, the doubt, the ritual, the loneliness, the hope — all wrapped in a voice that knows it’s both clown and prophet. You’re not just describing “a poet.”You’re describing the condition of making meaning when no one asked you to."
By Victor Mendez3 months ago in Poets
Don't Turn Around
The street is empty. At least, that is what my eyes insist. The lamps stand quietly, their yellow halos spilling onto wet pavement. The houses sleep. The trees do not move. The wind has gone somewhere else tonight. Yet every step I take feels borrowed. Every breath feels overheard. And every shadow seems to know my name. There is something behind me. I do not know what it is. I do not know where it began. I only know that it arrived the moment the world became too quiet. Have you ever heard silence become heavy? Not peaceful silence. Not the silence of a snowfall. Not the silence of a sleeping room. I mean the silence that presses against your ears, as though the night itself is holding its breath. That silence. The silence that asks a question. The silence that waits. I keep walking. My shoes tap softly against the pavement. One. Two. Three. A rhythm. A promise. Proof that I am still moving. Then another sound arrives. Not loud. Not clear. Just enough. A second rhythm. A second set of footsteps. Following. Matching. Never rushing. Never falling behind. I stop. The sound stops. I walk. The sound walks. I tell myself it is an echo. An illusion. A trick of empty streets and nervous thoughts. But explanations are fragile things. Fear is stronger. Fear does not need evidence. Fear only needs possibility. The moon watches from above. Cold. Distant. Uninterested. The clouds drift across its face. For a moment, darkness covers everything. And in that brief darkness, I feel it closer. Not see. Feel. A presence. A weight. A certainty. There is something behind me. The old stories return. The stories grandparents tell children. The stories whispered around campfires. The stories people laugh about during daylight and believe at midnight. Stories about things that wait. Things that follow. Things that want to be noticed. Things that hope you will look. I remember every warning. Don't answer when your name is called. Don't open the door after midnight. Don't follow strange lights. And above all— Don't turn around. The road stretches endlessly. The town feels abandoned. Even the stars seem farther away. I pass a row of dark windows. For a moment, I glimpse movement in the glass. Not ahead. Behind. A shape. Tall. Still. Watching. I keep walking. Faster now. My heart has become a drum. My breathing has become a storm. Every nerve inside me screams for certainty. Look. Just look. One glance. One second. End the mystery. End the fear. But fear is not always afraid of monsters. Sometimes fear is afraid of answers. What if nothing is there? Then all this terror belongs to me. What if something is there? Then it belongs to reality. I am not sure which possibility is worse. The footsteps continue. Closer. Closer. Closer. Never seen. Always known. I cross a bridge. Black water moves beneath it. The surface reflects the moon. And for a moment, I see two reflections. One is mine. The other stands behind me. I blink. It is gone. The water becomes ordinary again. But my pulse does not. The night grows colder. The air sharpens. The distance between each breath widens. I can almost feel eyes on the back of my neck. Patient eyes. Ancient eyes. Eyes that have watched countless travelers before me. Eyes that know exactly when people choose to look. I imagine turning around. I imagine the moment. The movement. The discovery. The truth. Perhaps it is a stranger. Perhaps it is a ghost. Perhaps it is a memory. Perhaps it is every regret I have ever carried. Perhaps it is fear itself, walking in my shadow. The possibilities multiply. Each one worse than the last. Still I walk. Still I listen. Still I wonder. And the thing behind me remains. Not touching. Not speaking. Not leaving. Simply existing. As if its purpose is not to catch me. As if its purpose is not to harm me. As if its purpose is only to follow. Only to remind. Only to remain. Hours seem to pass. Or minutes. Time behaves strangely when fear becomes your companion. The road ends at a field. Tall grass sways gently. A lonely path cuts through the darkness. The footsteps stop. For the first time all night, I hear nothing. No wind. No insects. No movement. Nothing. The silence returns. Heavy. Patient. Waiting. I know the moment has come. The choice stands before me. Keep walking. Or turn around. My hands tremble. My breath shakes. The night watches. The moon watches. The unseen thing watches. Every instinct tells me to run. Every question tells me to look. I close my eyes. I gather my courage. Slowly— Very slowly— I begin to turn. The world seems to pause. The stars freeze. The air stills. The darkness leans closer. And then— I open my eyes. There is nothing there. No monster. No ghost. No shadow. No creature waiting in the dark. Only a long empty road. Only silence. Only night. Relief washes over me. I laugh. A nervous laugh. A foolish laugh. The kind of laugh that arrives when fear finally releases its grip. I was wrong. Nothing followed me. Nothing watched me. Nothing was behind me. Then a voice whispers softly beside my ear: "Good. You finally stopped looking the wrong way." And suddenly, I know the thing I feared was never behind me.
By AFTAB KHAN3 months ago in Poets
