And sometimes, in the middle of the night, I still feel you. Not in the way I used to, not with the sharp edges of longing, not with the desperate pull of missing, but in the quiet way The sky holds its breath before the rain.
Something stirs, and I'll be lying still, half asleep. Somewhere between the world and wherever we go when we're not really here anymore. Not outdoors. Not in the room.
But somewhere deep inside me, where your name still echoes in the language, Only I remember a dialect of two, spoken only once. And yet somehow fluent in my chest.
It’s in the way the sheets feel too big. Like the bed remembers what I’m trying to forget. It’s the way the silence starts to press against my sternum. Soft at first, weightier than a hand that once felt like home Now just the memory of one. It's in the ticking of the clock, louder than logic allows. As if even time knows it owes us something.
And then there’s you. It’s like you never went away. As if you had been hidden away in the folds of time, tucked into the space between seconds, Patient, unassuming, just as I left you.
I do not chase the past anymore. I have learned that rivers will never run backwards. No matter how long you stand at the bank and weep. But I think the past sometimes walks behind me barefoot, slow. overtaking me without warning in the middle of the night.
I can't see the past anymore. I've learned that rivers don't run backwards. No matter how long you stand at the bank and beg. But I think the past comes back in pieces.
A song that comes on at 2am, soft, Lyrics that shouldn't mean anything but somehow know all my tender spots. A shadow on the wall, like a memory.
The scent of rain on warm pavement is a smell. That does not belong to the bringing back of your hands. And the dreams. The dreams, God. As soon as I open my eyes, they’re gone. leaving only an unnamed, incomplete sensation, like a sentence that trails off in the middle of a thought, Never finished with a period.
I wonder if you feel it, too.
Lyrics that shouldn't mean anything but somehow know exactly where I'm heading. A shadow cast on the wall in a shape that looks like a memory. The scent of rain on warm pavement is a smell. that does not belong to the bringing back of your hands.
And the dreams. The dreams, God. As soon as I open my eyes, they’re gone. leaving only an unnamed, incomplete sensation, like a sentence that trails off in the middle of a thought never finished by a period.
I wonder if you feel it, too.
When the world is quiet, and The noise finally leaves you alone. Do your thoughts wander somewhere? That seems to have my name on it? Have you ever missed the silence? We used to share the silence that was complete without words. Because I do.
I miss being known for no reason. I miss the shorthand of us. The way a glance across a room said everything a paragraph couldn't. I miss the gravity of it, that just your presence made everything. A little more solid. A little more real.
And yet, I am not broken.
I am changed, the way all things are changed. By what they love and then release. I am transformed like all things. That are transformed by what they love and then let go. Time passed, and I with it, not in grace, not without sorrow, but I moved on. And love, true love, does not always follow. It is still there. It melts. It learns to live quietly in the rooms we no longer visit. But we cannot quite bring ourselves to close the doors on it.
So no, I don't cry like I once did. The ache has grown old with me. Softer now, more patient, more like a river stone than a wound. But in the night, when all else is still, And I am neither here nor there; I feel you.
And for a moment, just one, I let myself remember us. And for a moment, just one, I let myself remember us.
But some piece of me settled in you. And even now, even here, even in the middle of the night, It knows the address. After, Not to be present. Never to return.
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