The pages i tore

I sit with the silence

and write his name again.

Not because I want to remember—

but because forgetting feels dishonest.

Sometimes I write as if he’s reading.

Sometimes I write

just to keep breathing.

The story is over.

Everyone moved on.

But my pen still wanders

through places where he’s gone.

I tear the pages when it hurts.

I burn the words he made feel small.

But they return

in different poems,

wearing different names,

in softer fonts,

but the pain feels just the same.

Some days, I convince myself

this is healing.

Other days, it feels like

just another way

to miss him quietly.

He left,

but memory has no manners.

It shows up uninvited—

in dreams, in songs,

in the quiet right before sleep.

I’m not writing to be heard.

I’m writing

to stop holding space for someone

who never stayed.

I won’t forget—

but today,

I’ll try to write

something

that doesn’t end with

his name.