Love Of Illusion Poem by New Girl Dark NewGirlDark

Today I feel fragile,
and silence weighs more than before.
The hours move slowly around me,
like ghosts dragging chains across an empty floor.

I miss a love I believed was real,
arms that felt like shelter… or illusion.
A warmth I held against my chest
as if it could protect me from the coldness of the world.

Now I sit alone with memories
that no longer know where they belong.
I replay every word, every touch,
trying to understand when tenderness became deception,
when comfort turned into absence,
when something beautiful became another wound.

I remember laughter that now hurts,
as if it had been borrowed from time.
Moments that once felt eternal
now echo like distant sounds inside abandoned rooms.
And somehow the silence after love
hurts more than loneliness ever did before it arrived.

There are nights where I still reach for those memories
like someone searching for light underwater.
Not because they save me,
but because for a moment
they let me feel alive again.

I miss the version of myself
who believed in soft things without fear.
The one who looked at love
as if it could truly stay.
The one who rested inside another heartbeat
without wondering how long it would last.

But reality is cruel in quiet ways.
Sometimes people hold your soul gently
while already preparing to leave.
Sometimes they love you only in fragments,
only in temporary moments,
only enough to leave traces behind.

And what remains in me
is this soft, cruel emptiness:
having loved something that was never real,
but that was real inside me.

That is the tragedy no one speaks about.
Feelings do not become false
just because the other person could not carry them honestly.
The love I gave still existed.
The nights I spent believing were real.
The tenderness inside my chest was real.

Even if I was loving an illusion,
my heart was not pretending.

So today I let myself grieve it.
Not only the person,
but the future I imagined beside them.
The safety I thought I had found.
The peace I thought their presence created.

And though I know some wounds never fully disappear,
I also know this fragile heart of mine
survived every darkness before this one.

Still breathing.
Still remembering.
Still carrying love,
even after it shattered inside my hands.

@NewGirlDark