To My Palmetto Love

To my love that weaves in the palmetto trees

Where the wind hums your name and my heart still believes

I press my cheek to the warm earth and whisper

I miss you

Not just in the quiet, but in the chaos too

We were two flames dancing out of rhythm

You with your wildfire, me with my quiet prism

We burned too high in different corners of the sky

Still somehow touched, even when we didn't try

I release the grief

Like sweat from skin on a Southern night

The sorrow

Like soft tears that fall before sleep's bite

The resentment

Like clothes I've outgrown but kept in a box

I'm letting them go

I'm letting you go

I'm sorry I couldn't be the woman you needed

That version of me just didn't breathe where your love seeded

But the love

Oh baby, the love was real

Unconditional like Sunday dinners, like Grandmama's seal

In the hush of that early morning rise

When the sky hadn't yet blinked open its eyes

Your soul slipped into another world

And I wasn't there

You had another special friend by your side

And though I hurt, I knew

You were loved

You were held

And who was I to step in?

An old flame, a distant him

But still, still

You were my once upon a dream

Your family and I, we remain stitched by time

Sharing stories like wine

Remembering your laugh

The way your eyes held summer's shine

We honor that timeline that was ours

A brief forever carved under moonlit hours

Now you live in wind chimes and sweetgrass

In old songs and memories that will never pass

And I

I crave the way you loved me

Fully, messily

With everything broken and beautiful in between

Until I see you again

Whether in another life or the next dream

Please keep watching me from your new sky

Send me courage when I cry

Send me joy on quiet days

Send me a breeze that knows my name

I still dance with your memory beneath palmetto shade

Still speak to you when the moon starts to fade

Because love like ours doesn't vanish

It just changes its shape

So until we meet again

In a breath, in a bloom

In some place where stars make room

Wish me well

As I learn to love again

Not as if you never were

But because you always will be

My eternal maybe

My once-in-a-lifetime flame

My never quite mine

Yet always mine just the same