As the Pendulum Swings

I hated your absence
until I learned to live by it—
to chart my nights around the vacancy
where your star had once burned,
to call the darkness by another name
and mistake the quiet
for the shape of healing.

I built my peace slowly.

Stone by stone,
I made a small universe of myself—
hung new constellations
where your light used to be,
learned the patient orbit
of solitude,
and found, somewhere between
the waxing and waning,
that I did not need
another sun to make a dawn.

Then you returned.

And just like that,
the heavens shifted.

A star I had buried
rose again over my horizon,
and every telescope in me
turned toward you.

I hate that you are back,
even just momentarily,
just as a shadow seeping through the cracks.

I hate the way your gravity
still knows my name,
how one message from you
can send whole galaxies
into disarray.

I hate the questions
that begin multiplying in the dark:

What if?
What if somewhere out there we made it work?
What if we both held on and all the stars aligned?
What if the ending was only an eclipse?

And worse . . .
I hate that some small part of me
still loves the thought of us
returning to the same sky.

I do not want to entertain it.
I do not want to calculate
the distance between our stars,
or trace old constellations
looking for signs
that were never meant
to be read again.

I have spent too long
learning the language of stillness
to let one returning star
teach me longing again.

So I stand here
between two gravities—

one pulling me toward you,
one pulling me back toward myself—

and I am tired
of being celestial indecision,
tired of swinging
between departure and return,
between the peace I built
and the love I thought
I had finally outgrown.

Perhaps this is all I can do:

let the pendulum swing
without following it.

When I miss you,
I will write a letter.

I will tell you
about the nights
I almost looked for your star.

I will tell you
about the peace
you never knew I found.

I will tell you
that sometimes
I still imagine
our orbits crossing again.

And then—
I will fold the letter,
seal it beneath the moon,
and never send it.

Because perhaps love
does not always ask
to be returned.

Perhaps sometimes
it only asks to be witnessed
before it disappears
beyond the horizon.

So let the pendulum swing.

Let the stars wander
through their ancient courses.

Let you remain
wherever your orbit takes you.

And let me remain here—
a quiet universe
I built from the ruins,
learning, once again,
that peace is not the absence
of a returning star,
but the courage
to let it pass
without becoming its gravity.