Love isn’t always about love. Sometimes it’s about sacrifice. It’s about letting go. It’s about defeat. So, when history witnesses another lost love, it might be one of those loves masked underneath sacrifice.

Don’t be with me, dear. I won’t be able to love you enough. 
All I know is that even if I want to make you mine, I won’t be able to. 
And this defeat of mine, I would never be able to explain to anyone. 

Don’t come near me, dear. Because I fear. 
Not for this love I have for you or the love you have for me, but I fear myself. 
I fear you being around me and I fear me being around you. 
I fear my hands that I adore you with. The same ones you adore too. 
I fear the rage that possesses me. The one I can’t control. 
But trust me, I myself fear living with this inner rage. This inner demon. This monster. 
I fear it. I fear it to the core. I fear hurting you. I fear losing you. 
I fear losing my love and more than anything I fear you losing your love for me. 

That night wasn’t the only night. It wasn’t the only time I lost control. 
Actually, I didn’t lose total control, because my brain was aware. 
I knew what I was about to do. I knew how it would end. 
Me repeating sorry and sorry and sorry, and you sobbing only tears. 
But I couldn’t control my body. Like I couldn’t before. 
Your hands were bleeding, love. And I did that to you. I did. 
How am I supposed to take back time? 
Take back all your tears? All your fear? And all your pain? 
There are only two options now, either to let my love go or let my love suffer.
What’s more painful? Witnessing my defeat? Or, 
My love, safe and happy and without a possessed monster like me?

Just think about it…what are our wedding vows going to be like? 
I promise to be good to you. I promise to love you and honor you. 
Darling, I have to promise to be good to you. 
But how shall I promise you that, when I am not good. 
How shall I claim to love you when tears, caused by me, stain your cheeks? 
I promise to protect you and take your responsibilities. 
But darling, how should I protect you from dangers, when I myself am the danger. 
How should I protect you from myself? From the evil that lies within me? 
Love, imagine our daughter, the one we always dreamed to have together. 
Imagine her witnessing my rage, this defeat within me.
Imagine her witnessing your tears, your fear and your pain. 
Imagine her holding back tears. Imagine her hating me. 
Hate is the only thing she can do because I am worthy of only that. 

What if I told you all these things? What would happen? 
You would stay with me. You would suffer through pain for me.
But darling, history repeats itself. It always has and it always will. 
My mom once decided to live through this pain for my dad. 
Hoping that he would change. Someday or any day. 
But he never did. I don’t want to be like my dad, darling. 
I can’t have you suffer like my mom. 
I don’t want my kid to hate me as much as I hated my dad. 

So, I am leaving you. But before I go, 
I want to give you one last memory of ours. 
Perhaps the most precious one. 
The last white rose to you.
Standing before this same lake where we first met. 
Where our hearts knew each other before we could. 
But little did we know, this lake
Where our story began is also where our story ends. 
You have those earrings on, the rose-brown ones, my favorite. 
Your alluring wavy hair is running through my fingers one last time. 
I delicately slip the flower behind your ears, 
The soft curve of your shy smile frames it perfectly, like a surreal dream. 
Your deep hazel eyes reading mine one last time. 
You did your eyeliner today, black—just how I like it. 
You wore the blue dress today, the one I gave you. 
Maybe you too understood the ending of us. This ending of us. 
Maybe you already know the words I am about to say. 
Maybe you too are as defeated as I am. 
If it was just about love, maybe nothing could have separated us. 
But this is about destiny. This is about sacrifice. This is about us. 

You would be gone, but never really gone from my heart. 
Just like how I would be gone, but never really gone from your heart. 
Let this white rose be the witness to all of this. 
Let it be the witness to our ending. 
To this defeat. To this moment. To this sacrifice. 
Let it be an echo of our past. And an echo of our love. 
Let it be with you till the end. 
To that ending, where there will be no defeat. 
Where both love and loving wouldn’t be a burden 
And where fear wouldn’t exist.

Let this white rose be it all, my love. 

Process

This poem is from a lover’s perspective, specifically from a man who struggles with anger issues. This poem reveals his immense love for his lover, and along with that, he states that love gets defeated before his anger. He goes back in time and reveals how he physically tortures his lover when angry despite regretting it every time he does it. As the poem continues, he further reveals that his father had anger issues and used to abuse his mom. With that he claims that he doesn’t want his lover and children to hate him just like how he hated his own father. The narrator’s love is at its peak when he decides to leave his lover because he doesn’t want her life to be in ruins because of his anger issue.

I was inspired to write about this topic because sometimes I feel my emotions too intensely. Sometimes, I feel overly angry, sad, happy, or lonely. During those times, I always wondered if other people experience the same intensity of emotions and, if so, how it affects their lives. In this poem, I focused on anger and took a step further by exaggerating the idea of individuals controlling their emotions. I tried to connect it to a real-life scenario, where the audience gets shown how a person struggling with emotions like anger feels about themselves. One of the main reasons I wrote the poem from the narrator’s perspective is to expose to the audience that someone with anger issues is not necessarily a bad person, as society often assumes. But in reality, they might be struggling and hurting inside, which society fails to acknowledge.