I Still Carry the Echo

If only memory were softer,

If only time agreed to bend,

I still carry the echo of the beginning,

Before endings had a name,

Before love learned how to ache,

Before the weight of choices settled into my bones.

I still remember the first moment you existed to me,

Not as a concept, not as a responsibility,

But as a miracle that made the world pause.

The way my breath caught,

The way fear and wonder arrived together,

The way my heart rewrote itself without asking permission.

I remember the smallest details —

Hands too small for the dreams already assigned to them,

Feet stumbling forward with reckless trust,

Eyes wide enough to hold entire galaxies.

I remember the laughter that came from nowhere,

The falls that ended in tears and lessons,

The way you reached for me

As if I were unbreakable.

I remember thinking I could be.

I still remember the years stacking quietly on top of one another,

Moments disguised as ordinary days.

Morning light and midnight worries,

Bandaged knees and whispered reassurances,

Stories told twice because you liked them that way,

Questions that grew heavier as they grew wiser.

I remember teaching without knowing I was teaching,

Loving without knowing how fragile it all was.

I remember the fears that lived under beds,

The monsters that only appeared when the lights went out,

The invisible weight of responsibility that never slept,

The quiet promise I made every night:

I will keep you safe.

I remember believing love would be enough.

I still remember how hard I tried,

Even when I didn’t have language for exhaustion,

Even when I mistook survival for strength.

I replay every misstep like a broken record,

Every word said too sharply,

Every silence held too long.

I remember the things I didn’t know I didn’t know,

The warnings disguised as intuition,

The signs I brushed aside because I was tired,

Because I was human,

Because I was learning in real time

With no instruction manual and no safety net.

I stood in the fire when I had to,

Swallowed my pride when it was necessary,

Took the blame even when it wasn’t mine.

I held the line until my hands shook,

Loved fiercely while doubting myself quietly,

And learned how to smile through fear.

And still —

I was not enough.

Still flawed.

Still human.

Still carrying cracks where certainty once lived.

I wore responsibility like armor,

But armor grows heavy when no one helps you lift it.

I remember the loneliness of being the one who stays awake,

The one who calculates outcomes,

The one who absorbs impact so others don’t have to.

I remember being vigilant when I wanted to rest,

Strong when I wanted to break,

Certain when I was anything but.

Every day felt like standing guard at the edge of something precious,

Terrified of what might slip through,

Terrified of what already had.

If I could rewrite the moment things shifted,

If I could slow the second where everything cracked,

I would enter that scene differently.

With gentler hands.

With sharper awareness.

With the wisdom pain delivers too late.

I would listen longer.

Pause sooner.

Ask better questions.

I would choose differently where fear made decisions for me.

I would protect without suffocating,

Guide without gripping too tightly.

I would make the ending less cruel,

The fallout less devastating,

The door less final.

I would save us both

From the sharpest edges of regret.

But time does not revise itself.

It only teaches through scars.

So I live with memory instead.

With the truth that love was real,

That effort was sincere,

That intention mattered even when outcomes didn’t reflect it.

I live with the knowledge that doing your best

Does not guarantee a painless ending,

That loving deeply means risking devastation,

That some lessons arrive dressed as loss.

And still —

I remember.

I remember the good.

I remember the warmth.

I remember the version of myself

Who believed fiercely and loved without conditions.

That person still lives here.

Bruised.

Wiser.

Still hoping.

Because memory, for all its weight,

Is also proof that something mattered.

That something beautiful existed.

That love was never wasted —

Even when the ending broke us both.