My Favorite Unfinished Poem.
I have carried the ache of missing him far longer than I was ever blessed with the sound of his voice.
He had a funny accent, one that would have made anyone smile, and I could have listened to his voice notes for hours, letting them play over and over until I memorized every pause.
I loved his city before I knew where he was from. I loved the way he described places as though they had souls of their own.
I loved the future he painted with his words, the cafes he wanted to sit in, the libraries he wanted to lose himself inside, the streets he hoped would someday know his footsteps.
I loved the books he spoke of, the poems he quoted, the films he wanted me to watch.
Somewhere between all those ordinary conversations, I quietly fell in love with the person telling them.
I loved him before I knew what loving someone felt like.
I thought I was only waiting for his messages.
I didn’t realize I was waiting for him.
The nights became softer because he existed in them. Midnight no longer felt lonely when there was a notification from him.
Hours disappeared without either of us noticing. We spoke until the world outside our screens went silent, until sleep became an inconvenience and tomorrow felt far away.
Those conversations never felt heavy.
They felt like home.
Now midnight only reminds me of what I’ve lost.
I have missed him for longer than I ever knew him.
I have spent more time remembering him than I ever spent making memories with him.
How strange is that?
Four months.
Just four months.
Yet they have lived inside me for an entire year.
Sometimes I wonder if he remembers anything at all.
Does he remember the conversations that made me smile at my phone?
Does he remember the poems?
The books? The dreams?
Or have I become just another forgotten name buried beneath newer memories?
I don’t know.
And I suppose I never will.
He lingers quietly in the background of every ordinary day. Not loudly enough to stop me from living, but softly enough that I never truly stop missing him.
Some mornings, it’s just a passing thought.
Some nights, it feels like grief.
There are days when I wish I had been prettier. Kinder.
Braver. Healthier.
Less afraid.
I wish I had been someone who could have looked him in the eyes and simply said,
I adore you.
Instead, I loved him in silence.
And silence has a cruel way of convincing people that nothing was ever there.
His little poems still make my heart ache.
His words still find me when I least expect them.
I remember his name as though it were stitched into my heartbeat. I remember the stories, the pictures, the videos, the way he dreamed out loud about a future he couldn’t wait to reach.
I remember everything.
I only wish I had given him something worth remembering too.
I wanted to ask for forgiveness.
Not because I hurt him.
But because I never found the courage to be honest.
Now it feels too late.
Because only I miss him.
He is probably missing someone else.
Maybe he found the person he was searching for.
Maybe someone else gets to hear those late night stories now.
Maybe someone else knows his dreams before he falls asleep.
Maybe someone else has become the home I wished I could have been.
I hope they’re gentle with him.
I hope they love every ordinary thing about him.
I hope they never make him wonder if he is enough.
Because he was always enough to me. The tragedy is not that he never loved me.
The tragedy is that he never knew how deeply I loved him.
There was never a confession.
Never a dramatic goodbye.
Never an ending.
Just two people who stopped talking, while only one of them kept carrying the conversation inside her heart.
People say your first love teaches you something.
Mine taught me that love doesn’t always arrive with certainty.
Sometimes it arrives disguised as ordinary conversations.
As recommendations for books.
As shared playlists.
As dreams spoken after midnight.
As someone sending you a picture because they thought you would like it.
You don’t notice you’ve fallen until they’re gone.
And then every little memory becomes sacred.
I pray that somewhere in another life, we meet again.
Not as strangers behind screens.
Not as people who were almost something.
But as two souls with enough time, enough courage, and enough honesty to choose each other before it’s too late.
Until then, I will keep carrying him the way people carry old poems they can never quite forget.
Not because they still hope.
But because some words are simply too beautiful to leave behind.
And perhaps that is what he has become.
Just my favorite unfinished poem.-jhilmil.
