I wish I mattered.
Not in passing,
not in the quiet way a memory fades
when no one’s looking,
but in the way something stays.
I wish I mattered to you,
the way you mattered to me,
like breath,
like gravity,
like something I never questioned
until I felt it slipping.
I wish you saw it.
Every bit of effort,
every piece of me I reshaped
just to fit a future
I thought we were building together.
I kept laying bricks
long after the house was gone,
hands bleeding,
still believing
you might come back
and call it home.
I wish I mattered enough
for you to look twice.
To hesitate,
to wonder,
to feel even a fraction
of what I couldn’t turn off.
Instead, I became a “once was,”
a closed chapter
you didn’t reread,
while I was still outlining
the rest of our story.
You moved me into the past
so easily,
while I was still living
in a future
that had your name in every corner.
I wish I mattered.
Not just to memory,
not just to what we were,
but enough
to make you stay.
Or at least…
enough
to make leaving
harder.