What I Didn’t Notice
"A quiet reflection on the kind of change that arrives slowly, in the wake of a connection that didn’t hold."
I didn’t notice the change at first –
only the way your silence
began rearranging the small things:
the pause before I reached for the phone,
the thought I found myself letting go of,
the tenderness I no longer waited for.
It showed itself in small ways –
the way mornings felt thinner,
how familiar places
seemed to hold their breath,
as if they knew before I did
that certain hopes had nowhere left to go.
And still, I told myself
it was only a passing season –
that the ache would settle,
that I would find my footing
in the spaces you no longer filled.
It took me longer than I’d admit
to name what had already happened –
that the distance wasn’t temporary,
that I had changed in ways
your return could no longer undo.