Echoes I Cant Silence

I wish it didn’t hurt,
not in the quiet, not in the loud,
not in the spaces where your name
still lingers like a ghost I can’t outrun.

I wish I didn’t look at pictures of you
like someone staring through glass,
close enough to see your happiness,
too far to ever touch it again.

I wish you weren’t everywhere,
in the pauses between my thoughts,
in the habits I haven’t unlearned,
in the silence that somehow says your name.

I wish the pain would end,
or at least dull into something I could carry
without feeling like I’m breaking
under the weight of what we were.

I wish I could go back,
rewrite every moment with steadier hands,
speak softer, love harder,
be the version of me you deserved.

Be better.
God, I would be better.

But all I have now
are the echoes.
Your words circling endlessly,
finding me every night
when my head meets the pillow.

And there you are again,
the last voice I hear
before sleep takes me somewhere
you no longer exist.