Score |
51
What We Used to Call Us
<p><br/></p><p>We didn't fight. We just stopped</p><p>finishing each other's texts,</p><p>let the read receipts sit there</p><p>like unclaimed baggage</p><p>at a carousel nobody's watching anymore.</p><p><br/></p><p>I still know your coffee order,</p><p>the way you laugh before the joke lands,</p><p>which songs made you cry in 2019 </p><p>useless trivia now,</p><p>a museum with no visitors,</p><p>the exhibits still labeled,</p><p>the lights still on,</p><p>but the doors chained shut at six.</p><p><br/></p><p>Nobody died. Nothing broke.</p><p>We just drifted to different shelves</p><p>in the same library,</p><p>still in the building,</p><p>still spelling the same words differently,</p><p>still nodding at each other in the hallway</p><p>of a life we used to share a room in.</p><p><br/></p><p>I remember the year we were inseparable </p><p>how we built a language out of nothing,</p><p>inside jokes thick as rope,</p><p>a whole shorthand</p><p>that meant I see you, I've got you, I know.</p><p>I didn't think a rope could fray this quietly.</p><p>I thought it would need a knife.</p><p>Turns out it just needs time,</p><p>and other people,</p><p>and the small daily choice</p><p>not to reach.</p><p><br/></p><p>I keep the good years like photographs</p><p>I don't look at but won't throw out </p><p>proof that this was real</p><p>before it became</p><p>something we used to be.</p><p>Proof that once, you were the first name</p><p>I wanted to tell things to,</p><p>and now you're a name</p><p>I hesitate before typing,</p><p>wondering if it's still mine to use.</p><p><br/></p><p>Sometimes I draft the message.</p><p>Hey, been thinking about you.</p><p>Delete it. Draft it again.</p><p>There's no clean way to say</p><p>I miss who we were</p><p>without it sounding like an accusation,</p><p>without it asking you to explain</p><p>what neither of us can.</p><p><br/></p><p>No apology would fix it,</p><p>because nobody did anything wrong </p><p>that's the strange grief of it,</p><p>grieving something</p><p>with no villain to blame,</p><p>just two people who got busy,</p><p>got distant, got tired,</p><p>got quietly comfortable</p><p>with the silence</p><p>where a friendship used to be.</p><p><br/></p><p>Some doors don't slam.</p><p>They just stop being doors </p><p>turn back into wall,</p><p>smooth and blank,</p><p>like nothing was ever there,</p><p>like I didn't spend years</p><p>learning exactly how to knock.</p><p><br/></p><p>And still, some nights,</p><p>I set a place at the table in my mind</p><p>for who you used to be to me.</p><p>Not out of hope you'll return.</p><p>Just out of habit.</p><p>Just because</p><p>love doesn't always know</p><p>when to stop setting the table,</p><p>even after it's learned</p><p>no one's coming to eat.</p>
12
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