I saw you tonight. Not imagined, not remembered but there. Laughing in a light that didn’t belong to me anymore. Your hair caught the pulse of a thousand colours, each one whispering that you’ve learned how to be lighter. Be patient with me. I tried. I still am. You weren’t looking for me; your shoulders finally forgot to flinch at the sound of my name. You’ve learned to live without waiting for ghosts. The air smelled like citrus and somebody else’s cologne. You moved as if the world had finally forgiven you. I stood by the door, pretending I had somewhere else to be. The benches remember us. That streetlight gold still glows in my mind we thought we were something steady, but we were lightning that believed it could stay. You said you never meant to hurt me. I know. That’s what makes it worse. Because if you’d meant it, I could have hated you cleanly. Instead I have this honest silence that keeps replaying the parts where we almost made sense. You’ll be okay. Sure. I just don’t know what that looks like yet. Maybe it’s walking home through rain that doesn’t touch me, counting the streetlights like prayer beads, one for every message I never sent. I still think about you when it rains. I know. That’s why I can’t sleep. Let me go. I’m trying. But you keep dancing in reflections, in slow songs, in every sudden laugh that sounds like yours. And I keep standing still, learning how to disappear without leaving. Be patient. The words circle back, the last thing you ever said with certainty. I hear them now not as promise but as release. Sometimes I think the rain is you, returning in fragments too small to hold. Sometimes I let it hit my face and call that forgiveness. Sometimes I imagine you stop mid-dance and wonder why. That’s me, somewhere in the static, learning to let you be happy without needing to vanish myself.
