Observer of What Was Mine

The seen became saw,
a life no longer happening,
only remembered.

The watched became watcher.
I am no longer inside it,
just outside the glass,
fingertips resting where warmth used to be.

Everything continues
with or without me.
Streets still hum,
laughter still finds its way
into rooms I’ll never enter again.

And I sit here,
quiet as an afterthought,
watching a version of living
that once called me its own.

I hope for it,
that impossible return,
that reckless mercy of time
rewinding just enough
to let me breathe it in again.

But even a moment
would be too sweet.
A taste I’d never survive losing twice.

And even a moment
would be too much,
a debt no lifetime of longing
could ever repay.

So I remain here,
in past tense,
where everything I was
is something I only saw.