Amelia James Poetry

I gave you grace like sunlight—
gentle, unwavering, though it burned me deep inside.
I cradled my anger in open hands,
offering it to you as a gift.

And when it wasn’t returned,
when my kindness met with silence,
I wondered if it was ever mine to give.

I longed for you to see the cracks
I’d patched with threads of understanding,
the places where my heart had been wounded,
and still, I reached out—
hoping you’d find the pieces
I had so carefully held together.

But you,
you never saw the weight
I carried for both of us,
never felt the ache of the forgiveness
I’d offered on a silver platter,
waiting for the grace to return.

I was not asking for restitution,
not for the weight of your guilt
to be placed on my shoulders.

Only for the smallest of reflections—
for you to see me as I saw you,
a soul caught in the same storm,
battered by the same winds,
but we never truly met in the middle.

And now,
I find the empty space
where reciprocity should’ve been—
a hollow echo of all I gave
and never received.

There is no neat ending here,
no sweeping of the hurt into something
that can be fixed or forgotten.

Some wounds,
it seems,
are just too deep to ever heal—
lingering in the air like smoke
that never fully fades.

-Amelia James