Loving Someone Who Hurt You: Grief, Loss and the Things We Leave Unsaid
I wrote this after losing someone who had been part of my life for many years.
Carl and I had a complicated and, at times, deeply painful history. There were things that happened in our relationship that hurt me profoundly, and parts of it that I will never romanticise or forget. I had to eventually find the strength to walk away and build a life beyond what our relationship had become.
But leaving someone doesn't mean you stop loving them.
There was real love between us alongside the hurt. There were good memories alongside the ones I wish I could erase. And there were parts of Carl I loved deeply, even when our relationship had become something that was no longer safe or healthy for me.
The last few times we saw each other were painful. We've broken each other's hearts in different ways, and there are things I wish I could take back. More than anything, I wish he had known how much I loved him.
I thought there would be more time.
More time for the anger to fade. More time for the painful parts of our history to become memories. More time for forgiveness, for understanding, perhaps even simply for peace.
I didn't know that death would make all of that impossible.
Long Before You Died
I thought I'd lost you years ago,
long before you died,
somewhere between the highs and lows,
and all we couldn't hide.
We were never an easy story,
never simply wrong or right;
there were days you were my safest place,
and days I feared the night.
We burnt our life down to the ground,
until there was nothing left to save,
but underneath the ashes,
something still remained.
I learned to love you from afar,
when staying hurt too much,
to hold the pieces of our history
without reaching out to touch.
I thought I'd made my peace with it.
I thought I'd let you go.
I'd learned that love could still exist
where nothing else could grow.
I remember you asleep sometimes,
your lashes on your cheek,
the quiet softness of your face
when there was nothing left to speak.
And maybe that's the cruelest part—
that love was never gone.
It had simply changed its shape
and learned to carry on.
You told me that you loved me.
I couldn't say it back.
Not because the love had vanished,
but because I'd found my path.
I couldn't give you hope
that you could ever come back home.
I never knew those words unsaid
would become words carved in stone.
I thought we'd have another night,
another chance, another day,
enough time for softer words
to find their way.
But death has made the distance
a place I cannot cross.
And everything we left unfinished
is now forever lost.
And so I hold the love that stayed
beneath what we destroyed,
the love that couldn't save us,
but neither could the void.
You were never simply mine to lose,
nor simply mine to keep.
You were the man I loved awake,
and watched beside me sleep.
And now the story has an ending
neither one of us could choose
no more changing, no repairing,
no more chances left to lose.
I thought I'd lost you years ago,
long before you died.
But losing you forever
is a different kind of goodbye.