From a distance, I watch the space between two friends grow small,
A quiet closeness forming, a step—a drift—I’ve seen it all.
Their laughter fills the hours from morning’s start to evening’s fall,
And somehow, I feel more distant now than I ever did before.

He’s just a friend, she says, with the ease of practiced lines,
But there’s a weight in his gaze, a purpose behind his time.
Perhaps it’s nothing, or maybe it's the way these things unwind,
One steady step into spaces I once thought were mine.

I asked her, lightly, to guard the borders of their ties,
A simple caution shared, a soft concern disguised.
But my words fell like whispers, dismissed into the skies,
Leaving me with an ache, unseen, unspoken, denied.

So here I am, a spectator to the subtle, shifting ways,
Caught between letting go and the memory of better days.
If this is what it means to care, in all the ways love decays,
Then I’ll stand in silence, holding the ghost of us in place.