Call Me Selfish, If You Must

Call me selfish, if you must—

I will not flinch, I will not plead.

Let the world judge,

Let the winds whisper behind my back,

I care not for their words.

But what I hold—

What beats within this chest like sacred drums—

Is mine. Entirely. Unapologetically.

I cannot share what is yours to me—

Your love, like morning light

Softly slipping through the cracks

Of long-forgotten windows in my soul.

It is mine—

Not to divide, not to dilute.

Your memories—

Ah, how they live in me!

Each one a firefly in the quiet dark,

Blinking in rhythms only I understand.

They sit in corners of my silence,

They color my dreams in midnight hues.

I cannot lend them,

Not even for a heartbeat,

To a stranger’s gaze.

Your dreams—

Those trembling whispers you once dared to speak—

They’ve taken root in the garden of my hopes.

I water them with longing,

With the ache of distance,

With the joy of remembering.

Your words—

Those soft-spoken sentences

That fell like feathers on my shoulders—

They echo in my empty rooms.

Each syllable stitched into the silence

Of nights I keep all to myself.

And those moments…

Oh, those sacred moments—

The closeness, the laughter, the stolen sighs.

The days that ran like wild rivers,

And nights that lingered like old songs—

They belong to me now.

They are the pages of my story.

They are not for sale,

Not for sympathy,

Not for public display.

So yes,

Call me selfish.

Let your words drip with disdain.

I will wear the name like armor.

Because to share even one fragment of you

Would be to tear apart

The very thing that keeps me whole.

You were mine,

In a way time cannot erase.

In a way distance dares not diminish.

And I—

I will hold you close

Even if it means holding you alone.

Call me selfish,

But I will not let go.