What if?
What if I told you again—
not with the heavy weight of a plea,
or the desperate hand reaching out in the dark,
but simply as the wind tells the oak
that winter has changed the shape of things—
What if I told you
I miss the way you talk to me?
Not as the sacred center of your world,
not as the single star you navigate by,
but the way you speak to the crowded room.
Casually.
Effortlessly.
With that bright, unguarded warmth
you scatter like breadcrumbs to the passing birds,
never once looking back to see
who is starving.
I watch you hand out your laughter
to strangers and passing ghosts,
while I am left sitting at the edge of the feast,
holding an empty plate.
You give them your lightness,
your untethered mind,
the casual music of your ordinary voice—
the very thing I used to steal away with
when the night belonged only to us.
Now I am just another face in your margin.
And God help me,
I miss being treated like everyone else
by the only person
who ever meant everything.
Would it change the tilt of your head?
Would it make you pause, mid-sentence,
to look at me and remember
how the music used to sound
before you learned how to play it for the crowd?
Or would you just smile,
nod,
and keep right on talking—
leaving me behind in the noise,
wondering if you even heard the question at all?