Amsterdam

I left the key

on the windowsill

next to an empty tulip stem,

a postcard from someone who never meant it,

and a note that just said:

“don’t wait.”

The canal outside didn’t care—

water never remembers who fell in.

It only carries.

It only reflects

until even your shadow gets tired of following.

I wore my grief like a borrowed coat,

too heavy in the wrong weather.

Amsterdam rained sideways that morning,

like the sky wasn’t weeping—

just spitting me out.

I thought about calling you.

Telling you the bicycles still creak like your laugh.

That the city smells like burnt sugar and old promises.

That your ghost

still buys stroopwafels

and eats them with the same cruel slowness

you used on my apologies.

But what good is memory

in a city built on forgetting?

There are bridges here

that don’t lead back.

Streets that don’t ask where you came from.

Bars where even your name

feels foreign in your mouth.

So I renamed myself in Dutch.

Called myself Verlaten,

which means both “left” and “abandoned.”

(It felt honest.)

I kissed a stranger

just to prove my lips still worked.

I danced alone

like I was trying to outpace

a version of me still curled up

on your kitchen floor

back in another country,

with another name,

holding on like love was owed.

But I owe nothing now.

You taught me that leaving

isn’t a door,

it’s a mirror.

And I broke it

with the same hand I used

to hold yours

the last time

you said

nothing.

Now, I walk.

Past houseboats that rock like the lullabies

I never sang.

Past red lights that don’t blink—just burn.

Past couples with locked fingers

and eyes that still believe.

And when someone stops me,

asks what I’m doing here,

I just say:

“Forgiving.”

And keep walking.