This morning, I didn't think of you first when I woke up.
It took me a while to notice that. But when I did, it hit me like cold water to the face. Not in a dramatic, weird, falling to my knees kind of way. Just… quietly. Like something important had shifted in the background, without asking for permission. Like the silence you don't hear until it's already settled in your bones.
Usually, there's a moment— right after waking— where your name flickers through my head, half-conscious and automatic. Everyday.
That tiny ache of you echoing before the rest of the world can interrupt. But today, for the first time in a while, it didn't. And I can't decide if that's healing, or something I should be scared of.
Because right after I noticed it, the fear crept in.
The fear that I'm forgetting you.
Not intentionally. Not out of anger or progress or self-care. But just… from the slow way time wears things down. The same way your favorite t-shirt starts to lose its color. The same way voices sound further away in dreams after you wake up. It's that kind of forgetting— the kind you can't control. The kind that scares you because you realize how little control you have over what stays and what slips through the cracks.
And that's the worst part, isn't it?
Not the heartbreak. Not the absence.
But the slow, terrifying reality that forgetting happens without your consent.
I didn't check your profile today. Didn't hover over our old chats. Didn't play that one voice note I've been keeping like it's the last surviving artifact of a past life. I didn't do any of those things— and when I realized that, I felt like I'd betrayed something. Like I was cheating on my own grief.
Because it means you're fading.
And even if you hurt me, even if you left without a word, I'm still not ready to let go of your outline in my head.
Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
There's this strange in-between moment that I live in now— a limbo of sorts.
I don't miss you with the kind of intensity that drowns me, like it used to. But I also don't not miss you. You're there, but quieter. Like background noise I've grown used to. The way the fridge hums at night or how the ceiling fan clicks once every few seconds. Familiar. Faint. Still there.
Some days I feel lighter. Not happy, but weightless in comparison to the days where grief clung to me like soaked clothes. I laugh. I get through tasks. I sit in sunlight and don't immediately think of how much you would've loved it. I listen to new music and sometimes— just sometimes— I don't imagine sending it to you.
And that's what frightens me most.
Because what if I forget the sound of your voice? The exact rhythm of how you said my name? What if one day, someone says yours in passing and my heart doesn't flinch?
Would that be progress? Or would that be proof that you've finally been erased?
I don't want you to be erased. Just like I don't want to be erased from yours.
But it's not because I want you back. But because I want to remember what it felt like to love someone that much. Even if it was messy. Even if it ended badly. I want to remember the details— even the small ones.
The way your texts felt like warmth. The way your "hmm?" was laced with curiosity even when you were half-asleep. The little "oh shut up"s, when you were trying not to smile.
But memory is fickle.
And lately, I've started realizing I can't get some things exactly right anymore. Like trying to recall a scent from a dream. It's there, and then it isn't. And it's so terrifying. Because if I forget too much, then maybe we really are gone.
For real. Forever.
I don't think I'm scared of losing you.
I think I'm scared of forgetting how much you mattered.
And that fear shows up in the weirdest ways. Like guilt after a good day. Or laughter that feels misplaced. Or when I talk to someone new, and part of me is still waiting for your voice to interrupt. Still expecting a message from you saying, "So, who's that? Huh!?"
Jealous. Playful. Familiar.
But those messages don't come anymore.
And I'm slowly forgetting how they used to sound when they did.
There are moments I want to message you— not because I think you'll reply, but because it would make this version of you in my head feel more real again. Like if I send something, even to the void, then maybe the connection isn't fully gone.
But I don't.
Because I know it's not just silence now. It's distance. Choice. Reality.
You're gone in a way that I can't undo.
So instead, I write. Like this.
Trying to capture what's left before it all disappears.
I still wonder sometimes— do you remember anything? Do you ever pause on my name? Does anything I gave you still exist in your world, even if only in a drawer you don't open anymore?
Or did you get rid of everything?
All the memories, moments, events?
I know, I know it's selfish. But I still want to matter. At least a little. At least somewhere.
But maybe that's the cruel part of all this: we rarely forget at the same pace.
You might already be miles ahead, free of the weight I still carry like a second skin.
And me? I'm still here, stuck in this liminal space between letting go and holding on. Between wanting to remember and being afraid that I will.
Somewhere between the forgetting and the wanting.
That's where I've built a home now.
And maybe that's where I'll stay, for a little while longer.
And who knows, maybe forever!