"I Talk Anyway”

"I miss you"

"I think of you often"

"I wish we had more time"

"I know you tried your best"

"It’s easier to speak to your silence than to engage with the living"

"I dreamed of you again"

"and then you disappeared"

"I wake up reaching for the feeling"

"before I remember"

"It’s lonely"

"I wish I had someone to talk to"

"So I talk anyway"

"I talk to the quiet"

"I talk to the space you left"

"I talk to the idea of you still listening"

"I love you"

"I don’t pretend you were perfect"

"but you were real"

"and you tried your best"

"That matters to me"

"I taste the salt of my tears"

"while speaking to you"

"Sometimes I stop mid-sentence"

"as if you might answer"

"Sometimes I finish the thought"

"for you"

"I replay our conversations"

"and think of you daily"

"The ones that mattered"

"The ones that didn’t"

"The ones I didn’t understand"

"until my life changed"

"Everything opened at once"

"Memories I didn’t know I was holding"

"started coming back"

"I didn’t go looking for them"

"They just arrived"

"Through color"

"Through words"

"Through quiet moments"

"where my hands knew what my mouth couldn’t say"

"I started writing"

"because the feelings needed somewhere to go"

"I started making art"

"because my body remembered things"

"before my mind could name them"

"It wasn’t pretty"

"It wasn’t tidy"

"But it kept me here"

"I talk about you"

"I write about you"

"I keep every piece of you I have left"

"I keep the sound of your voice"

"the way you laughed"

"the way you stayed"

"even when you didn’t understand me"

"I wrap myself in a blanket"

"like a burrito"

"and pretend it’s a hug"

"You gave big ones when I was little"

"I used to say you were like a teddy bear"

"Safe"

"Soft"

"Steady"

"I wish you could have met him"

"I know you would have loved him"

"Because of him"

"I understand who I used to be as a child"

"The sensitivity"

"The imagination"

"The way I felt everything all at once"

"I see it in him"

"And I protect it"

"I tell him every day"

"how much he is loved"

"I say it out loud"

"so he never has to wonder"

"I remind him he belongs"

"before the world tries to tell him otherwise"

"I use what I learned"

"from what hurt"

"from what healed"

"from what stayed unfinished"

"Talking to you hurts"

"Talking to you helps"

"It hurts because you are gone"

"It helps because you were real"

"Your silence doesn’t rush me"

"It doesn’t correct me"

"It doesn’t ask me to be smaller"

"Your silence lets me be whole"

"I speak to you through sentences"

"through color"

"through the space between words"

"I speak to you"

"so I don’t disappear"

"I speak to you"

"so he never has to"

"Your silence holds my voice"

"when I can’t hold it myself"

"Your silence holds me"

"And for now"

"That is enough"

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