Halfway Across August

The sidewalk splits beneath a tree

I don’t remember blooming —

but maybe it always has, and I just

never looked up.

That feels like something I’d do:

miss the flowering,

focus on the crack in the pavement instead.

There’s that house again,

the one with the porch swing you said

you’d fix,

the dog you named after your mother,

or the ache you named after me —

I don’t remember which.

The shutters are new.

The curtains drawn.

No sign of the past,

except in me.

Funny,

how it’s been twelve years and I still

pretend I might see you turning the corner

with that grin that never meant

what I wanted it to.

I used to think

if I held on long enough

you’d circle back —

like the seasons, or songs,

or guilt.

But seasons don’t come back the same,

songs get softer with distance,

and guilt is just love that lost its way.

I carry too many half-written letters

in a notebook I never show anyone.

The kind that start with

"I hope you're well"

and end with

"...never mind."

I thought I’d moved on.

I really did.

But there you are —

in the space between two streetlights,

in the quiet before the traffic shifts,

in the smell of rain before it decides.

I gave you my whole heart

like someone who thought time would wait.

Turns out it only bends

for people who let go.

And I didn’t.

Not until now.

Not until this walk,

where your name doesn’t taste like a question anymore —

just an echo

I finally don’t follow.

So I keep walking.

Not forward, exactly.

Just away.

Which is close enough.