It always hurts in a way nothing else can
when you finally realize
you're the only one putting in the effort,
the only one giving time,
the only one stretching your heart
just to keep something alive
that was supposed to be shared equally.
They call it mutual love,
but what is mutual about a love
where the sacrifices are one-sided,
where the devotion has only one heartbeat,
where the care flows from one direction
and dies before it can return?
How can it still be called love
when the weight falls only on your shoulders?
How can patience survive
when you are the one waiting,
hoping, praying, holding on
while the other person forgets to reach back?
Love becomes unequal long before it breaks.
It becomes quiet, lopsided,
unbalanced in ways the heart feels
long before the mind admits it.
And endurance—
how can it exist
when you're the only one hurting
in a place meant for two?
You give.
And then you give again.
And you give until your heart
no longer feels like a gift
but a sacrifice laid at the feet
of someone who never learned how to hold it.
You keep pouring
until there's nothing left in you
but the ache,
that deep, familiar ache
that reminds you
you were loving alone in a love
meant to be shared.
And when the heart finally empties,
when the giving becomes pain
and the sacrifice becomes silence,
that's when you understand:
What you called mutual
was only ever one sidedly you pouring your heart out to the one heartless to you