Leave your sweater here
So I can breathe you in
A scent that whispers you're near
Even when you're gone.

Sometimes
I miss the voice I listened to for years
The coziness of a bed with you as my blanket
And the sweet and savory meals you made
Moments that tasted like home.

Sometimes
I think about you
How happy you seem now
And how much I regret the life you chose
So empty, so suffocating
I thought my presence might have meant something
That maybe, just maybe
You needed someone
Someone like me.

Sometimes
What I feel now
What I do now
Everything about you
No longer matters
A waste of my time
And all I want to do
Is to escape from all this confusion.

Sometimes
I realize
All these things are temporary
Wounds will heal
The ache will fade
And one day
I’ll feel love without your shadow.

I close my eyes
For minutes
Or perhaps hours
Lost in an ocean of questions
Too many

Is it okay to feel joy
Or even more
While others cannot?
Is it okay to share my happiness
When others struggle just to live?
Is it okay to ignore the sorrow around me
Just for a moment
To hold on to this fleeting smile
Because I don’t know how long it will last?

I know I deserve to be happy.
I know I deserve to hold it close
To make it linger
But don’t they deserve it too?
Don’t they?

And yet
I’m sorry
In this moment
I need to be selfish.
No.
I have to be selfish.
To feel alive.
To survive.

That’s okay, right?

The feeling of love
The ache of longing
I hold them now
In silence, in peace
As I once dreamed long ago.

No fear of losing
No dread of disappointment
Yet these feelings
They no longer matter
They change nothing.

One day
Perhaps, they’ll destroy me
But until then
They should go.
Very soon.

How lucky they are
To call you their friend
To stand close like a shadow
Or drift far like a star
And never fear the distance.

To pour words like rain on thirsty ground
To share as if time were endless
But I couldn’t
Like a bird slipping from open hands
I lost a friend.