the thing about missing you
is that it doesn't end

i keep finding pieces of you
in the strangest places
a song in the grocery store
In synchronicity with nature
In a scent that should not exist
anymore

sometimes i think
you haunt me on purpose.
sometimes i think
i haunt myself

every night
i beg you
come back
come back
come back
even if it kills me
(which it already has).


she must glow
the way i once did
when your name was still
a promise
and not a wound i created

i imagine her laughter
filling the cracks in you
that i was too blind to reach
i imagine her hands
where mine once prayed

and yet
at night
when the world softens
and the lights go out
i wonder
does she know
how quiet you become
when you're remembering?

because i do.

i learned to love your silence
until it devoured me
i built my heart
into a house of waiting
and you walked right past it
as if it were a mist

now
every version of me
still stands at that door
unmoving
unwanted
a shrine to everything
you almost wanted back

the cruelest thing
is how the love remains
faithful, trembling
staring into the space
where you used to stand

and i tell it
gently
that you're not coming.
that you never were
you chose her.
but i am the one
who never stopped carrying you
like a curse

she will have your future
i will have your ghost