Amelia James Poetry

If I could erase you from my past,
I would never have known
the warmth of love even if it wasn’t real.
I would never have felt the rush of hope
that I could be someone’s forever.
I would never have built my world
around promises made in the dark.

But if I could go back to before the fallout,
before everything shattered,
I would hold onto you harder,
believe in us more,
and fight to keep the pieces intact
even when I knew they were already breaking.
I would pretend I didn’t see the cracks,
would keep pushing forward,
hoping, wishing, that you’d change.

The problem is, neither choice would erase the hurt—
I would lose either way.
If I never met you, I’d have a hole where
a part of my heart used to live.
If I went back,
I’d be drowning in the weight of knowing
that it was all just a lie
waiting to unfold.

And here I am,
stuck between the memory of what could’ve been
and the reality of what was never meant to last.
I can’t go back and fix the pieces,
can’t go back to that moment before the storm,
because I know what’s coming.
And I can’t erase you,
because even the thought of a world without you
feels like a life I’m not sure I’d recognize.

So I sit here,
caught between two painful options,
wondering which would hurt less—
to undo it all
or to carry the weight of it forever.

-Amelia James