I Would Not Dare
If I could gather back
all the love I have given,
would I?
Not only the easy love.
Not only what remained beautiful.
All of it.
The love given to people
who knew what to do with it,
and the love given to those
who did not.
The love that was returned.
The love that was squandered.
The love I carried longer
than perhaps I should have.
Would I call any of it back?
No.
Not one drop.
What would I do with it?
Love was never meant to be gathered again,
counted and returned
to some private reserve.
What I gave freely
was true when I gave it.
An ending does not get to reach backward
and make a liar
of every beautiful thing
that came before it.
Nor does the beautiful
erase what came after.
I have learned
both truths can live
in the same room.
I can love what was
and leave what is.
There are things
I have learned to keep.
Letters.
Photographs.
A beautiful memory
exactly where I found it.
Love is not one of them.
Love is freedom.
Freely given.
Without ransom notes.
Without conditions.
Not held hostage
by what it becomes
or how it ends.
Perhaps that is why
I can stand before an old painting,
admire what is beautiful,
remember why I once loved it,
and know—
it does not have
to come home with me.
I have learned that love
and access are not the same thing.
Love is not permission.
Love is not proximity.
Love is not endurance.
I can love
and still close a door.
Some doors close
because I live here too.
Closing a door
does not empty the room.
I did not set fire
to what remained.
I did not need to.
I simply learned
that a key once given
does not have to remain
in another's keeping.
I have not hardened.
I have simply learned
who gets the key.
And if you asked me again—
after everything,
after every ending,
after all the pieces of myself
I have placed into other hands—
Would I take any of the love back?
No.
Some people may keep
the piece I gave them.
There is still love here.
There always has been.
So no—
not one drop.
I would not dare.
With Grace & Ink,
Mai
