Your Name in Every Line

— A poem about love, memory, and the inescapable presence of someone who once meant everything

I tried to write a poem

Without your name in it.

But every word I chose

Wore your shadow like a second skin.

Even silence whispered you.

I inked the moon,

But it curved like your smile.

I etched a river,

Yet it moved like the night you left—

Slow, soundless, stubborn.

I wrote of stars,

But they blinked in the rhythm of your laugh.

I penned a storm,

And it cried the way you once did—

Face turned to the window,

Too proud to let me see.

You are in the spaces

Between my words,

In the breaths my commas take,

In the pauses where feelings

Grow too heavy to be said aloud.

I said "light,"

But meant your gaze.

I said "distance,"

But saw the miles you put

Between who you were

And who I now remember.

I crafted metaphors from loss,

But they all carried your name

Folded quietly inside,

Like a love letter I’ll never send

But always reread.

You left,

Yet here you are—

In every ink stain,

Every crumpled page,

Every half-finished stanza

That couldn’t hold its weight

Because it missed your hands holding it.

You’re in the ellipses…

Trailing off like the way you stopped calling.

You're in the rhythm

Of every unfinished goodbye

I pretended not to hear.

I tried to write about autumn.

But the leaves whispered “her”

As they fell.

I tried to describe rain,

But each drop repeated your name

Against my window,

Soft as a secret

Too sacred to say out loud.

I turned to the ocean—

A place where names dissolve.

But even there,

The waves wrote “you”

On the shore

Again and again,

And each tide returned it

As if refusing to forget.

You haunt my grammar.

My semicolons linger,

Unsure if this is the end

Or just a pause

Before remembering you again.

I write of healing,

Yet bleed nostalgia.

I say "freedom,"

But still wear your voice

Like a locket pressed

Against my every intention.

Maybe this is a curse,

Or maybe it’s a devotion

That outlived its promise.

You’re not just the muse—

You are the ink,

The paper,

The pulse behind the pen.

Even when I try to write joy,

You are there—

Not as sorrow,

But as the golden flicker

Of a candle long blown out,

Still warm in memory.

And so I stop pretending.

I stop resisting.

Let this be what it has always been—

A confession disguised as craft,

A requiem for love

That never truly died.

Your name is in every line,

Because it was never just your name—

It was the language I used

To teach myself to feel.

It was the ache and the answer.

The story and the silence.

The wound and the ink.

So if you ever find this,

Know I never forgot.

I only translated you

Into verse.

Over and over again.

Because every time I write,

It’s not just poetry.

It’s memory.

It’s mourning.

It’s love,

Still speaking

Through the only voice

I have left—

The one that learned

To carry your name

In every line.