@zamees
Each year
on this day,
I check my phone
more than usual.
Not for party texts
or dinner plans.
But because
this is the day
you should remember me.
The one day
you might write.
Or call.
Or show up.
Like I always imagined
you would.
It’s the day
I let belief in you
have one more chance.
My wish:
for you
to break the silence.
But each year
I grow older,
and your absence
stretches longer.
No message.
No name I know.
Just the dull thud
of hope hitting the floor.
There was a time
when love lingered.
When we all stayed
a little longer
after goodbye.
As friends.
Love, I’ve learned,
is not subtractive.
It does not take,
it gives for as long
as we embrace it—
even after you’ve gone.
Love adds up
quietly
in the accounting
of who we’ve been.
The more I remember,
the more I learn:
what I gave
and what I withheld.
What I offered
and what I could not hold.
What I needed
and where I searched.
All of it
adds to me.
And adds
to you.
Now, it seems
each goodbye
is a closing door
with no knob
on my side.
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