Amelia James Poetry

I’m sorry,
for not being whole,
for not giving you the love I know you deserve.
I wish I could hand you something
that wasn’t fractured—
a heart that hasn’t been worn down
by ghosts of a love I lost before you.

I try,
so hard,
to be the woman who holds you completely,
but how do I give you everything
when I can’t even offer it to myself?
How do I love fully
when the pieces of my heart
are still scattered
and every time I try to piece them together,
the cracks show?

It’s exhausting,
carrying all these pieces
and pretending it’s enough for you.
I love you so deeply,
but I cannot pretend that the space inside me
isn’t still haunted by a love
that wasn’t meant to stay,
a love that was always meant to teach me
the depths of what it means to lose
something I thought I’d never live without.
You’ve never been the problem,
but how do I unremember a love
that felt like it was supposed to last forever?
How do I quiet a heart that still calls out
for someone I cannot reach?

And I’m so sorry,
that I can’t unfeel
what I’ve already lost.
You were never meant to carry the weight of that,
but the echoes of the past—
they are part of me now,
and I don’t know how to make them stop.

I’m trying,
I promise,
but how do I give you the heart you deserve
when I’ve been trying to patch up my own
for so long,
and I still don’t know how to make it whole?

I’m not broken because of you,
but I can’t fix this for us,
not yet,
and it hurts
more than anything I can explain.
I love you,
but I don’t know how to make it whole for you,

or for me.

-Amelia James