We Were Almost Always

There was a time your name felt like a beginning— a gentle unfolding of everything soft in a world that had grown too loud. You weren’t just someone I loved. You were a season. A chapter where the pages turned slower just to make it last. We were never chaos, never fire. We were rain on windows, late-night playlists, hands brushing in silence. Almosts wrapped in always. Goodbyes hidden inside good mornings. And maybe that’s what makes this hurt— not that you left, but that you were never really meant to stay. Still, I loved you in all the quiet ways. In words I never said, in texts I typed and erased, in poems I buried beneath smiles. You taught me that some people aren’t destinations— they’re stars we pass under, just once, but carry forever in our sky. So no, we didn’t last. But God— did we live.