The Echo of Everything We Never Said

I almost told you.

So many times.

But the words stuck to the back of my throat

like unanswered prayers.

You’d ask how I was,

and I’d say, “I’m fine.”

But “fine” meant

I was unraveling quietly,

waiting for you to notice.

We used to talk about everything.

From childhood dreams

to the shape of clouds we saw on lazy afternoons.

But somewhere along the way,

our conversations grew shallow —

like rivers drying under a quiet sun.

I remember the day I realized

you stopped looking at me like I was a whole story.

I had become background noise —

the kind people forget to turn off.

You weren’t cruel.

That was the hardest part.

You didn’t yell, didn’t cheat, didn’t leave.

You stayed —

but left emotionally.

I began talking to myself in the mirror.

Practicing the things I wanted to say:

“I miss us.”

“I feel alone when you’re near.”

“This doesn’t feel like love anymore.”

But I swallowed them instead.

Because silence felt safer

than rejection.

I started noticing the little things.

You didn’t ask about my day anymore.

You stopped sending those random, thoughtful texts.

We stopped laughing in the kitchen.

The space between us became a canyon —

wide, quiet, and echoing with things unsaid.

Sometimes, I’d lay next to you

and feel a grief so deep

it felt like mourning someone

who hadn’t even left.

We became excellent actors,

didn’t we?

Smiling for the world,

but dying in private.

Kissing goodnight,

but turning away the moment the lights went out.

I remember once

you looked at me and said,

“You seem distant.”

And I almost laughed.

Distant?

I’d already left you in a thousand different daydreams.

But my body had forgotten how to walk away.

So I stayed.

Until staying felt like suffocation.

I still remember your birthday.

Your favorite movie.

How you took your coffee.

It’s cruel, really —

how memory keeps loving

long after the person stops showing up.

I thought I’d feel relief when I left.

But grief came instead —

heavy, relentless, and quiet.

I didn’t miss what we had in the end.

I missed what we lost along the way.

Now, I write this not as revenge,

not as confession —

but as closure.

For me.

For all the versions of us

that tried to hold on too long.

If you ever wonder

why I stopped calling,

stopped checking in —

it wasn’t because I stopped caring.

It’s because I finally realized

I was writing poems to someone

who forgot how to read me.

And maybe that's what hurts the most —

not the leaving,

but the staying that never felt whole.

Some nights, I trace the outline

of your name in the air,

as if memory has texture,

as if loss could be held

like breath before a storm.

I wonder if you ever pause mid-laugh

and feel something missing.

If some joke feels incomplete

because I’m not there to laugh too.

I used to believe love always leaves noise in its

wake —

doors slamming, tears falling,

goodbyes echoing in empty hallways.

But now I know:

The quiet kind of leaving

hurts deeper.

Because there’s no event, no fight,

no final moment to hold.

Only a slow undoing —

like threads loosening

from something once tightly woven.

I tell myself I’m healing.

That one day, this ache

will become a soft scar

instead of an open wound.

But even healing has its echoes.

Even strength remembers softness.

So if you do hear my name

whisper through a song,

or find a line of poetry

that stings for no reason —

know it’s me,

still reaching across time

to where we left each other unfinished.

And maybe that’s all love really is —

not always forever,

but a truth we once held

so tightly

it changed us.

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