Real love doesn’t disappear, it settles. It sinks into the soft earth beneath our memories, nestling into the hidden folds of life where even time can’t quite reach. Silence may reshape it, soften its edges, but it never truly leaves. It lingers in a fleeting glance through a crowd, in a quiet song playing in an empty room, in dreams that stretch beyond the morning light. I know I have to go now, the lines have already been drawn across the stars. So I’m trying to follow them without questioning the path. Still, if the universe is kind, if fate forgets to lock the door, then maybe, just maybe, there’s still a chance we could find our way back to each other.

I swore I’d keep my distance, but the thoughts refuse to stay quiet. On nights that stretch too still, I drift back to the places your shadow used to linger. A flicker in the corner of my screen, just pixels, yet they haunt me like something I once held close. I follow the traces that lead to you. Are they breadcrumbs you’ve left behind or traps? Either way, I follow, hoping they’ll guide me back to your path. Your status changes, and I read it like scripture, searching for echoes of the space I used to fill. There are windows left open that you once ensured shut. Maybe by accident. Maybe not. Maybe for me. A recently played song, a watched video, a game you spent your free time on, small offerings that I gather and tuck away like sacred fuel. And if you catch sight of me, just a ghost in the rafters, I hope you won’t turn away. I hope, even now, you’ll leave a light on for me.

A flower is found, its color dimming beneath the vanishing sun. Its petals curl gently, fragile beneath even the softest touch, too weary to resist. I cradle it between my fingers, its stem still standing tall. Like a lover, I tug, asking the wind if my thoughts are true. A petal falls. She loves me. A whisper of grace. My fingers trace the memories we’ve shared, her laughter filling my air, her eyes piercing into my soul, that tender look she reserves for the one she’s chosen. Another tug. She loves me not. The air turns colder against my skin. Silence swells, heavier than our arguments. There’s no fury left, only distance growing wider. She loves me. A faint flicker of hope stirs inside me, a light too dim to break the dark. Yet her voice echoes in my mind, looping endlessly. She loves me not. The petal crumbles beneath my careless touch, and something deep within me aches. There is no grand finale, no clean ending, just the quiet drift into empty space, nothing solid to grasp. She still loves me. I speak it aloud, a half-truth dressed as a prayer. Maybe if I say it, it will become real. Maybe if I bend it just right, it will last a little longer. She loves me not. The final petal, once strong, lets go. It flutters down, brushing the earth as if to kiss away its own wounds. I lie back, my head in the grass before night fully falls, fingers stained with the remnants of love and rust. The flower is gone now, and only one question remains: Why is it that hearts can stop, yet still ache on?

I know you’re tired of me, because I’m tired of myself. And it’s not just the weight of my body, but the relentless echo of my thoughts, circling like vultures over the dead parts of me I can’t seem to resurrect. Each morning feels like I’m peeling myself out of bed, shedding skin that’s steeped in shame. I watch you sip your drink, knowing it’s easier than saying my name. You used to look at me like I was the sunset, worth staying a little longer for. Now your eyes drift: to the clock, to the glow of your phone, to anywhere but here. And I can’t bring myself to blame you. I built a mausoleum out of what we had, hoping you’d still find warmth in a tomb. My chest wasn’t always this hollow, but over time it unraveled, thread by thread, pulled by hands that mimicked mine. Now even your kindness makes me flinch, and the silence between us feels like confirmation of everything I fear. Somehow, I’m always too much and never enough all at once. I understand if your soul is weary, calloused by the effort it takes just to keep trying. I’ve carried the ache of my own presence for so long that sometimes, even I wish I could leave.

I was born from the absence. Each door shut with a lock, a mirror reflecting back, and the quiet of the room becoming a verdict of my time. So I begin to orbit around like a moon, grasping for gravity just to stay near. I beg for pull, the proof that I still matter, even when I’m not in the room. I ask more questions than a survey. Not because I’m trying to pry, but because I’m throwing my anchor overboard. Stitching myself into the moments between us, before even the moment itself forgets it existed. And yet, I still notice. The shifts you make beneath my weight. The way the joy across your face tightens when I ask once more, Where have you been? Who all was there? What was I not included in? It’s as if smoke is filling my lungs, and I blame the room if it slips through. I want to know all that I can, because once, I knew nothing. And that nothingness hollowed me out, left me so quiet I echo when I’m left alone in the silence for too long. I see how I steal your breath when you try to breathe. How your time gets stretched thin by my persistent questions, my mere presence,
this velvet desperation for belonging so complete you’ll forget I ever even asked. But I’ll probably still ask. I always seem to ask. Because when I think of it, if I’m not fully part of the moment, was I ever really there?

I loved her more fiercely than I ever intended to love again. Not because she asked me to, but because something within me needed to. As if some part of my soul recognized hers, and begged to give her everything. Like an angel descending into the ruins of my heart, whispering to try again. And so I did. I gave her pieces of myself I’d sworn I’d never share again. My aches, my trembling truths, the wounds I thought had long since closed, but she kissed them open. I began building a future with hands still shaking from the past, tracing blueprints of us across her skin. I told myself this was safe, even as the ground cracked beneath our feet. I tried to be careful, but she made recklessness feel like hope. I let her too close. Now, where her love once lived, there’s only silence. She left, not like a storm, but like a sunrise slipping away before I could hold onto its warmth. Like a page torn from a book mid-sentence. Now I sit here, love still blooming with nowhere to go. It hums in my chest like a song with no singer, a fire slowly fading without fuel. I never meant to love again. Never meant to need again. But I did, somehow slipping through the cracks. And now, I don’t know how to stop.

Don’t tell me you love me if the weight of who I am makes you flinch. If the fractured parts of me send you running instead of reaching. You say your heart is mine, but only when it’s effortless, when I’m glowing, when I’m easy to love, when I’m bleeding quietly behind a proud smile. Where were you when I shattered in silence? When my eyes pleaded for even the smallest reason to stay afloat? You’re in love with the idea of who I could be, the version that doesn’t question, that doesn’t ache, that asks for nothing. But love doesn’t live in words. It lives in quiet hands pulling someone closer when walking away would be easier. So don’t say you love me if you can’t stand still when the fire starts. If you vanish when things get real, it’ll hurt less to let you go. Maybe you never loved me, just the echo of someone I never was.