I Loved You Without Borrowed Words

I did not fall in love—

I learned its weather.

How your silence could frost a room,

how your laughter bent light

the way heat bends roads in summer.

You entered my life

like a question no one warns you about,

simple at first,

then impossible to answer

without losing something honest.

I loved you quietly,

the way houses love foundations—

not seen,

but holding everything together

until the ground decides to move.

Your name tasted like distance.

Every time I spoke it,

it traveled farther than I could follow.

Still, I kept saying it,

hoping love was a language

that forgives repetition.

We were not fireworks.

We were tectonic—

slow pressure, unseen shifts,

years of almosts

stacked beneath our feet.

When you left,

nothing shattered loudly.

The damage was architectural.

Rooms I built for you

forgot their purpose.

Windows stayed open

to air that no longer knew my name.

Yet I don’t regret loving you.

Some loves are not meant to stay—

they are meant to teach the heart

how wide it can open

before it learns the shape of loss.

Even now,

if love asks where you are,

I say:

everywhere I learned to feel deeply

and survived.