Enough To Be Seen

I wish I mattered.

Not in passing,

not in the quiet way a memory fades

when no one’s looking,

but in the way something stays.

I wish I mattered to you,

the way you mattered to me,

like breath,

like gravity,

like something I never questioned

until I felt it slipping.

I wish you saw it.

Every bit of effort,

every piece of me I reshaped

just to fit a future

I thought we were building together.

I kept laying bricks

long after the house was gone,

hands bleeding,

still believing

you might come back

and call it home.

I wish I mattered enough

for you to look twice.

To hesitate,

to wonder,

to feel even a fraction

of what I couldn’t turn off.

Instead, I became a “once was,”

a closed chapter

you didn’t reread,

while I was still outlining

the rest of our story.

You moved me into the past

so easily,

while I was still living

in a future

that had your name in every corner.

I wish I mattered.

Not just to memory,

not just to what we were,

but enough

to make you stay.

Or at least…

enough

to make leaving

harder.