Some days feel like progress.
I wake up, and I don't immediately drown. I don't sit on the bed for hours staring at the floor. I don't scroll through our old texts or open your profile out of habit.
I just… wake up.
I drink water. I eat something. I answer texts without flinching. I laugh at memes. I go outside and talk like I haven't been hollowed out. And to anyone watching, I seem okay. Maybe even fine.
But then night falls —
And it starts again.
This is the rhythm now.
Some mornings feel light, like the weight of you has finally lifted. But nights…
Nights still ache like they always did. Quietly. Constantly. Like a half-healed wound I keep bumping into.
Sometimes, I catch myself smiling. And for a split second, I feel guilty.
Because healing, in its quiet way, feels like betrayal.
It feels like I'm abandoning something.
Like if I stop hurting, then maybe none of it mattered. Maybe you never mattered.
And I don't want that to be true.
I don't want to forget how much you once meant.
Even if it kills me a little to remember.
There are nights where I lie on my back in the dark and wonder:
If I'm healing, why do I still feel broken?
Why do I still replay things we said? Why do I still imagine texting you when I hear something you would've laughed at?
Why do I still whisper your name in my head when no one's around to hear it?
I thought healing meant moving on.
But this… this feels like limping forward with shards still in my chest.
I don't cry as much now.
And when I do, it comes suddenly — sharp and confusing, like a burst pipe from a wall that looked fine all along.
There was a night last week. I'd had a good day. I laughed, ate properly, even worked a bit.
But then out of nowhere, while brushing my teeth, I saw something — a line of toothpaste on the sink, or maybe just my tired reflection — and I broke. Completely.
No warning. No build-up. Just a wave crashing over everything I'd held steady all day.
That's the thing about grief. It doesn't follow rules.
It doesn't care if you've had a "better" day.
I've started replacing small things.
New playlists. New routines. I scroll different pages now. I've muted your name from everything.
Not because I don't want to see it.
But because it still makes my heart stutter in a way that feels… dangerous.
And yet, sometimes, I still search.
Still type your name halfway and stop myself.
Still wonder what you're doing, if you're laughing, if you've found new conversations to fill the gaps I used to fill.
Sometimes I think you've forgotten me already.
Other times, I pray you haven't.
I live in this strange middle-space now.
Not drowning, but not breathing fully either.
A place between missing and moving on.
Half-forgotten memories still find their way in—
The way you'd say "text me when you reach," or how your texts always came in lowercase with too many dots…
The way you'd send random voice notes of songs I didn't ask for but always ended up loving.
And I hold on to these moments like relics.
Not to stay stuck.
But because I'm afraid of what happens when they disappear.
They say time heals.
And maybe it does.
But healing isn't a straight line.
It's a loop. A loop of forgetting and remembering, of smiling and collapsing, of moving forward and slipping right back into the same empty space you thought you'd already left behind.
And in that space, I've built a version of myself that can function.
I talk less about you now.
Not because you stopped mattering.
But because the world doesn't really ask anymore.
Because the people around me have started assuming I'm okay.
And sometimes, I let them.
Sometimes I play the part of someone who's moved on —
Even if the echo of your name still lingers behind every silence.
I'm not trying to be dramatic.
This isn't some poetic tragedy.
I'm just tired of pretending this hurts any less than it does.
I'm doing better. I really am.
But "better" still feels like limping.
Still feels like dragging around a version of me that only exists when I remember you.
A ghost that's not quite dead.
A love that's not quite alive.
A hurt that's not loud, but never really left either.
Half-healed.
Half-here.
Like me.