Respiros

You are the grudge I’d hold even with bloody hands and cracked teeth. Without it, you’d be gone.

Even on nights like this, when I lie screaming at the sky, hoping you can hear it, I can only seem to do it with my mouth shut. I will never speak to you again. Some days, that feels like a curse—the absence too loud, the weight too heavy to keep afloat. Other days, it’s a blessing—a reminder that some parts of me are free. Because sometimes, if I try, I can still see you—but now, I know I wouldn’t recognize you. Before, it was as if I looked into a mirror and you could see what I wished I could be, presenting myself to you as such. I molded myself into a version I thought you wanted, tucking away anything that didn’t fit the image I held of us. It was only later I realized you weren’t seeing me at all.

Even now, I still catch myself looking at me the way you did, wondering what you’d think about me now. Would you like my hair? My clothes? Would you hate my new icons? Did we get the ones we planned? Would you still recognize the person I’ve become, or did I lose you the moment I stopped trying to be the person you once knew? Questions and more questions, not left unanswered but filled by the ghost of you, caught in a permanent hiatus. More than a year has passed since I lost you, and I haven’t dared to write your name. With each letter, I feel you slip away inch by inch. I didn’t want to let you go and i catch myself actively choosing not to, even if it’s the last thing I do. I have carried you as an anchor, sinking into familiar depths even as I gasped for air—preferring to drown with you than surface alone.

Now, I’m adrift, swimming, sailing. And sometimes, on nights like this, when there’s no one else or any noise to hide the storm and waves, I reach for you, but you’re already gone, slipped beyond my grasp. So, I dive into the darkness and swim to rock bottom, searching for solid ground, but the sand no longer feels the same. There is no more ship, no more air, no anchor, no you. No us. Just me, learning to breathe alone.

2024