almost strangers

“we walked past each other like strangers who knew too much. your eyes caught mine once— long enough to remember, short enough to forget. i memorized your pauses like a language i’d never speak aloud. the way your laughter slipped between words and left a hollow i didn’t know i’d carry. i wanted to reach and hold something that wasn’t mine, that never asked for me. so i learned to fold my hands around nothing and call it hope. we shared space without sharing time, like two moons orbiting the same silence. and maybe that’s the cruelest thing: being near enough to feel warmth, but far enough to never burn. sometimes i imagine what it would feel like to step into your world without fear. to say your name without trembling. to exist in the almost without regret. but tonight, i speak it anyway. i speak it into the dark, into the ears of strangers, because even almost matters. even almost is worth being remembered.”