The Way We Keep Existing

There are pieces of me

only you ever bothered to find,

the parts I hid,

the ones I never named.

Sometimes I still feel your presence

like I’m walking through a room

you just left.

Warm air.

A dent in the pillow.

Evidence.

I used to think heartache

was just the consequence

of wanting too much.

That pain meant I’d earned it.

But I’m learning

I was wrong.

We were fire that forgot

how to take turns breathing,

sparks,

then silence,

then sparks again.

A cycle we didn’t know

how to break.

There are nights

I crave something reckless

just so I can stop thinking

about what’s missing.

There are mornings

I wake up from dreams of you

and hate how quickly reality returns.

We called it goodbye

but neither of us meant it.

Some loves don’t end,

they just change shape

and haunt softer.

All I ever wanted

was to make sure

you knew you mattered,

that your existence

has been the best kind of collision

inside my life.

I don’t replay the past

to torture myself.

I replay it

because it reminds me

love was real once,

not perfect,

not painless,

but ours.

Maybe someday

timing will stop picking sides.

Maybe someday

we’ll get the version of us

that learned how to stay.

Until then,

I keep the future open

just wide enough

for you to walk back in.