maybe then

“i should’ve just slept instead of letting my thoughts unravel. maybe then, you’d still be here. maybe if i’d kept quiet, maybe if i’d said more. maybe if i’d stayed. maybe if i’d asked you to. i keep blaming myself— for letting you go, for not holding on tighter when everything in me was already breaking. you slipped through like a dream i tried too hard to remember, and now all i have are pieces of us scattered across moments no one else saw. i replay it all— your eyes, the half-smile you gave when you didn’t know i was watching, the way silence never felt lonely when you were in the room. i miss that. i miss you in the smallest ways that somehow hurt the loudest. maybe we’d still be here right now— gazing into each other’s eyes, getting lost like we always did, like the world paused for us just long enough to forget it was spinning. maybe we’d have made it. maybe we wouldn’t. but what breaks me is knowing we’ll never know. you were the almost i keep writing into always, the ghost i carry in every poem i say isn’t about you. and still, after all the wondering, after all the aching, i sit here— blaming myself for not being enough to hold on. i should’ve just slept instead of letting my thoughts unravel. maybe then, you’d still be here. or maybe… you never were.”