Still Holding the Phone

And you never knew— how many times I stood on the edge of your name, typing and erasing, drafting words that felt too fragile to send. I wrote the messages, but never set them free. My thumb hovered over "call" like a ghost remembering how to hold the living. Not because I didn't miss you— God, I did. But silence sometimes feels safer than a voice that trembles. Some words decay the moment they're spoken, like truth bruised by too much air, like “I miss you” whispered into a hurricane. Some doors, once closed, start to feel like graves. And maybe I was afraid of finding you on the other side, happy. Healed. Without me. So I let the distance settle, like dust on unsaid things. And the questions— the aching, bleeding questions— I let them stay unanswered. You moved on, and I stayed— not in the past, but in the pause between knowing and letting go. So no, I never texted you again. But that doesn't mean I never held the phone like it was your hand.