The Password I Still Haven’t Changed

I keep your name as a password still,

a quiet glitch in my free will.

Four numbers, two letters, the month that we met—

security question I can’t quite forget.

≈≈

Each login is a séance with a screen,

Blue light humming where you’ve been.

The prompt asks, Are you still the same?

I type in us and press your name.

≈≈

They say, “Update it, make it strong,

Add symbols so it lasts more long.”

As if I haven’t tried to trade

our anniversary for something made.

≈≈

Once I picked “freshstart_2025,”

The system said it was “too weak” to survive.

I laughed out loud at the machine,

How did it know what I’d just seen—

≈≈

You in the grocery, aisle five,

our almost-life walking by alive,

your hand on someone else’s list,

My chest a locked file marked “dismissed.”

≈≈

I switched it back before the night,

to that old code that never quite

protects my heart from being hit,

But keeps you in my daily script.

≈≈

It’s stupid, I know—this tiny door,

This ritual you’re not here for.

Still, when my fingers spell us in,

A ghost of you logs on again.

≈≈

One day, I’ll let the server win,

retire your name from my login.

I’ll choose a word that’s mine alone,

no shared hotel, no borrowed phone.

≈≈

For now, this small, soft sabotage

is how I honor our mirage—

a secret key I can’t replace,

that opens nothing but your face.