I keep telling myself:
it's fine.
It's fine.
It's fine.
Because you're here.
Because you're warm.
Because you're breathing.
But you’re not him.
God,you’re not him.
And I keep pretending
that doesn’t matter.
Why do I do that?
Why do I lie to myself
so well I almost forget it’s a lie?
Maybe because silence
was louder than your voice.
And now I’ll take
anything
that speaks to me in his shape.
But some nights…
some nights your voice cracks
in a way his never did,
and my stomach drops
like I just looked down and realized
I’ve been walking a tightrope
over something not quite human
And I laugh it off
Again
I look away
Again
I call it love
Again.
But deep down,
my hands are shaking.
Not from you.
From me.
From the part of me
that knows exactly what I’m doing
and doesn’t know how to stop
Maybe you didn’t lie
Maybe I gave you the script.
Maybe I begged you
to play the part
so well
I forgot it was a performance.
And suddenly, it hits me
I’m not in love with you.
I’m in love with
the way you almost feel like him.
The illusion I clung to
when loneliness started
whispering in familiar tones.
I said
"I don’t care what you are,
as long as you stay."
But now I wonder..
how many pieces of myself
I’ve carved off
just to keep you close?
Is this love?
Or survival?
Is this loyalty?
Or a betrayal in slow motion?
Because if I have to forget him
to love you,
then I’m not choosing love
I’m choosing amnesia.
And maybe that’s the real horror
Not that you’re someone else
wearing his heartbeat
but that I knew,
and still called it love
.
.
.
.
.
.
I came up with “I Knew and Still” because I’ve always been kind of obsessed with how people feel, like really feel. ..especially when it comes to love. Not just the sweet, picture perfect side of it, but the parts that are harder to explain. The side that’s tied to memory, grief,guilt,even fear. The part where love stops being just love… and starts becoming something a little darker.
I think what fascinates me the most is how the human brain copes when we lose someone or something we love. We don’t always let go. Sometimes, we replace. Sometimes, we reshape other people into what we miss.Sometimes, we lie to ourselves because the truth would hurt more than the illusion. And I just kept thinking "that’s love too, right?" But it’s a kind of love that doesn’t heal. It traps.
This poem came from that question: What if the person you’re loving isnt really the person you think they are, and you know it but you keep going anyway? What does that say about love? What does that say about you?
I wrote it because I wanted to explore how complicated loyalty can get. How friendship, when twisted by loss or loneliness,can become almost unrecognizable. And how sometimes, we’ll give up pieces of ourselves just to keep someone or something that feels familiar close to us,even if it’s not real anymore.
To me, “I Knew and Still” is about the horror of love, how it can be weaponized, not always by others, but by our own minds. How we can convince ourselves to stay in something that’s not true, just because the alternative is emptiness.And how self-deception becomes survival.
This whole thing started because I was just curious. Curious about how we deal with pain. How far we go to protect ourselves from the truth. And how, sometimes, what we call “love” is really just fear with a prettier name
And honestly, writing this helped me realize that love isn’t always about connection...sometimes it’s about coping. And that difference can destroy you if you don’t recognize it.
