Ghost Messages

I miss you. Maybe I should tell you. Maybe I should tear through the distance with something as simple, as foolish, as a “hey, you crossed my mind.” But what if you see my name and feel tired? What if my hello feels like a burden you forgot to put down? What if I am the ache you no longer want to revisit? I stare at my screen, at the empty box where words should be, and I think — it’s safer to be a ghost in your past than an annoyance in your present. You don't know how many half-written messages I bury every night, how many brave thoughts I strangle before they reach you. You don't know how often I practice indifference, smiling at photos where your eyes no longer look for me, pretending I'm okay when every part of me wants to go back to the easy way you used to say my name. Maybe I miss who we were. Maybe I miss who I was when you still cared. Or maybe — maybe I just miss being wanted in the quiet way you once needed me too. There’s a whole world between us now: New people. New laughter. New silences that don’t include me. And yet, here I am — loving you quietly, the way I used to before you even knew. If missing you were a language, I would be fluent. If waiting for you were a place, I would have built a home there. If loving you secretly were a war, then I have fought a thousand battles and lost every one with your name on my lips. I miss you. But I’ll say nothing. I’ll type it out a hundred times, and erase it a hundred and one. Because sometimes the bravest thing you can do is love someone in silence. And let them forget you out loud.