Love Without Ego

I Still Do

(for no one, and you)

I love with a silence blooming in bones—

My love asks for nothing,

but still lights a lamp in the dark

in case you want to come home.

I love you like a prayer

when nobody is listening—

even when you vanish,

and the leaving is drowned in your absence.

I love you when your words turn to shadow,

or are lost on the air,

and your care stops calling my name.

You don’t have to earn it.

I never meant to give it.

It arrives like sun in the spring—

slow, warm, and impossible to refuse.

There are still pieces of you in my life—

the tone of your voice

curled around a word,

the way you linger

at the edge of your own heart.

You may never hold my heart in your hands again.

You may never say my name out loud.

I may never hear you.

But I hope,

when the noise grows quiet

and people around you forget to listen—

you remember how once,

you were deeply seen

and entirely loved

by a rose who asked for nothing.

I loved you.

Not to possess.

Not to be chosen.

But because some loves

arrive like stars—

brilliant, distant,

and mean to be carried,

not kept.

And I still do.

m.c.f.

Photo, 2024, m.c.f.