a flicker of maybe

“it’s strange how it all comes back uninvited. no thunder. no reason. just— a silence that tightens my chest like your name whispered in the wrong room. i don’t know when it began again. maybe it never stopped. maybe i just filled the ache with noise loud enough to pretend healing was happening. but you— you were more than memory. you were chaos and comfort and the weight i learned to carry like it belonged to me. i told myself i was okay. rehearsed it until it sounded true. but maybe i was just good at lying to the mirror. i thought the pain would leave when you did. but absence doesn’t work like that. it doesn’t sweep clean, it stains. and when someone else spoke their own version of heartbreak, i saw myself still holding your name like an apology that never found air. not because i want us again. not like that. but because some broken part of me still wants your forgiveness. still thinks if i said the right thing, you’d turn around and see me. i know better. i do. you’re not coming back. but still— i wait. a message. a sign. a flicker of maybe. i wish i could let the memories be memories. but i don’t want to remember them. i want to”