A decision that's breaking me.


ALL I EVER DID WAS LOVE.

ALL I EVER DID WAS LOVE.

Loved you
yes. I never questioned that.
Loved you in the way that doesn’t keep receipts,
the way that stays even when pride says leave,
the way that believes effort will eventually be met halfway.
Even now, I don’t rewrite the past to survive the present.
What we had was real, and I let it be real.
But reality also taught me that love can exist
and still be the wrong place to rest your heart.
There was a moment I noticed the shift
when saying your name felt heavier than holding your silence,
when explaining myself felt like defending a crime
I didn’t know I had committed.
Maybe true love isn’t always loud.
Maybe it doesn’t need to be proven with constant confession.
Because every time I spoke,
it felt like my honesty was turning into responsibility
you didn’t ask for but I was expected to carry.
Every unspoken word stayed with me instead,
settling in my chest, turning warmth into weight.
And I started to wonder
if love feels like a burden when it’s voiced,
is silence really cruelty, or is it self-preservation?
Guilt is a slow poison.
It grows when affection becomes obligation,
when staying is praised but leaving is treated like betrayal,
when loving someone means forgetting how to breathe freely.
Oh… so let me go.
Not because I didn’t love you.
But because I did
and love should never ask a heart
to grow heavier just to prove it’s real.



Poetry by Ogundu Christabel oluebube (Chrisie) The PoetBay support member heart!
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Written on 2026-01-27 at 16:46

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Melinda K Zarate The PoetBay support member heart!
As I read your poem I thought of a poem I wrote about unspoken expectations and how they can and often do grow into resentment. Silence often follows. I think about people on their wedding days and all the love they hold and the promises they make and yet, so very often, it doesn’t last. I speak from experience on that. I always think - love shouldn’t be hard and if it is, then something is amiss. Right? Maybe that’s just me believing in fairy tales.

Enjoyed your beautifully written poem very much. It made me sad.
Melinda
2026-01-27


Griffonner The PoetBay support member heart!
Such a heartfelt write, this. Deserves accolade in my opinion, I felt the pain that would be felt in such a relationship as this. Love has many facets, I think. And I'm beginning to think that true love is so unconditional as to be impossible for the majority of human beings. One look at the world as it is, and woah! Blessings, Allen
2026-01-27