Did You Find The Less You Were Looking For?

By Sylvester Wong

You wanted less-

less weight, less worry,

less hands reaching out in the dark.

You spoke of quiet like it was a wish,

like love was noise you couldn’t sleep through.

So I stepped back,

folded myself small,

left room enough for you to breathe.

Yet in the stillness,

you still disappeared.

No slammed doors,

No grand farewells-

Just silence where once I was held.

I wonder if the hush comforted you.

If the mornings came softer without my voice threaded through them.

If laughter, once tangled with ache, now lies untouched.

I stopped saying I love you every day.

Stopped trying to fix the storms you wouldn’t name.

I stopped showing up where I was no longer wanted ... even if I didn’t know how to stay gone.

You said I made your burdens mine,

that my care curled too tightly around things you never asked me to hold.

You said I had no boundaries, just needs.

That my love arrived on its knees, and you were tired of lifting it.

You said not to send those long, aching letters of a heart laid bare.

The kind that carried more feeling than you ever wished to hold.

Too much,

too often,

too open,

too tender for someone who never wished to keep it.

I do not reach for you.

But I listen, sometimes, to the pause between my thoughts - to the space where you used to speak.

And I wonder, if laying down my love was the quiet you needed all along.

Through the grapevine, they say you’re with someone else now. That your smile comes easier,

your step is lighter,

your days no longer carrying another's weight.

Perhaps you found your quiet.

Perhaps he gives you peace.

And I suppose,

if that’s what you needed,

I’m glad you found the less you were looking for.

I’m glad he loves you less.

By Sylvester Wong