I’m still learning how to handle
that I am not the one you choose.
It doesn’t arrive all at once.
It seeps in, slow and cold,
through the cracks I tried to seal
with “forever.”
I practice looking at you
like you’re just another face,
like my hands don’t remember
the shape of yours,
like we never built futures
out of late nights and fragile promises.
But you stand too far from ordinary.
There’s something in you,
an unspoken gravity,
that pulls me apart and back together
in the same breath.
An aura I can’t outrun,
no matter how far I pretend to go.
When I’m with you,
I become someone whole.
Edges soften.
The hollow quiet fades
into something almost like peace.
And when I’m alone,
the world returns to its dull truth,
colorless, unfiltered,
forced through my own eyes
instead of the light you gave it.
I know this isn’t meant to last.
I know I had my moment
and let it slip
through fingers that didn’t realize
what they held.
Still,
even knowing it’s temporary,
even knowing how it ends,
I would choose this ache,
this borrowed warmth,
over the emptiness of never again.