I don’t want to be a footnote in your story,
a passing mention, a line you skip over.
I don’t want to be forgotten.
And yet, here I am, living inside fragments,
trying to convince myself
that memories can be enough.

I look at my wall and I still see it,
your hand pressed there,
the imprint of a night we couldn’t stop touching.
I look at the floor and it betrays me,
because I remember lying there with you,
the whole world shrinking down
to the closeness of skin against skin,
our laughter spilling into the carpet.

The yellow light in my room,
God, I can’t turn it on without you.
I remember us under it,
our bodies curled together,
talking about life as if we had forever,
our words soft and certain,
your breath steady against my hair.
That light doesn’t just glow,
it burns me with memory.

Even my body remembers you, 
a sore that flares and aches,
and I think of your hands,
the way you held me,
the way you left me.
My skin is a record of us,
and it keeps playing
no matter how badly I want it to stop.

I go to the coffee shop
and, gosh, it’s your name on my tongue.
It’s you in the ice clinking against the glass,
you in the bitterness I can’t swallow down.
Every sip is a ghost, every sip is you.

And every day, oh, every damn day, 
I leave work and scan the street,
hoping you’ll be standing there,
like love could just show up,
like it could come back.
I walk home,
and I still check the front door,
still half-expect you to be waiting,
hands in your pockets,
eyes meeting mine,
with your wired earphones and linen shirts 
saying without words: “I never left.”
But you did.
And nothing happens.
Nothing happens at all.

I haven’t cried in four months.
I told myself that was healing,
that was progress.
But then, a stray thought, a sudden flash,
and I’m falling again.
I’m not in this world anymore,
I’m in a different dimension,
the one where you still exist beside me,
the one where the yellow light still holds us,
where the cold brew is still sweet,
where the door opens,
and it’s you.

But the truth is,
love has turned into distrust,
and trust has turned into silence,
and silence is all I have left of you.

Still, I don’t want to be your footnote.
I want to be your story,
the one you can’t put down,
the one you carry
like a scar you don’t regret.

And maybe that’s crazy.
But it’s mine.
This longing, this distrust, this love...
still pulsing,
still burning,
still here.

~