#whatitmeanstohavelost
I will wait—
not for your footsteps on my stair,
not for your hand turning my door again.
Your coming and going
is not my account to keep.
I will wait for that one morning
when you wake mid‑sentence,
coffee cold on your table,
and something stops inside you—
a gear you forgot ever existed.
You will say to no one,
or to the wall,
or to the ghost of my name:
No one ever loved me like that.
No one stayed quiet like that.
No one took all my leaving
and still left the door unlatched.
Then you will remember—
there was someone
whose name you know
but whose depth you never knew.
Someone who swallowed a thousand slights,
a thousand nights of being unseen,
and still would not unclench their fingers
from yours.
Not because they couldn't let go,
but because they feared
you would never know
what it means to be held
without condition.
That day you will search for me
in old messages, in the shape of a chair,
in the way rain sounds on a tin roof.
And you will ask the empty room:
Why didn't you come back?
Why didn't you call out just once?
Perhaps then I will not answer.
Because my waiting was never for your return—
it was for your understanding.
And between understanding and returning,
all the love in this world lies
waiting
silently.
Apr 23
Apr 23, 2026 at 4:10 AM UTC