Looking Back

 One day, memory will strike you like lightning on a clear day.

You’ll remember how I spoke in whispers, then in pleas, then in storms , but you chose not to hear.

You’ll recall each time I said your actions were breaking me, how you dismissed my pain like autumn leaves in the wind.

You’ll see clearly now how I warned you I was fading ; a ghost in slow motion, but you thought I was playing games.

You’ll count them all then: the small kindnesses I scattered at your feet, pearls you mistook for pebbles.

You’ll remember how I folded my pride into paper birds, releasing them one by one to keep our peace, even when the fault was yours.

The weight of my absence will remind you of my presence; my laughter in your kitchen, my lips against your cheek, the thousand tiny ways I made your days brighter.

You’ll remember how I looked at you with galaxies in my eyes, how I held your face between my palms like something precious, whispering “I love you” into the spaces between your doubts.

My quirks, my jokes, even what you dismissed as “toxic” ; my refusal to let your mistakes slip by unnamed, will echo in the quiet I leave behind.

I made you the center of my universe, while I orbited the edges of yours.

Now there is only silence where my voice used to be, absence where I once stood.

Because when someone stops reaching, stops speaking, stops fighting, it’s not surrender.

It’s acceptance that some battles can’t be won, and some hearts won’t be moved, no matter how much love you pour into them.