Toyyeebah Lanre-lawal Poet Free verse

What have I done?

You came by maybe for the last time,
to my room, to drop my scarf
and the pen I’d once placed in your palm.
When you left, I held that scarf tight,
hoping it carried some trace of you.
I never knew your scent,
but for a moment my whole body trembled
with the wish that I did.

I hoped you would wait a little longer.
I hoped you would tell me about your day
the way you once did
when everything was simpler
and neither of us knew it.

Sometimes I wonder if you ever look back
on the quiet days we shared
and see the empty space I carved without meaning to.
I wonder if you regret anything.
I hope you don’t.
I hope you remember more than the silence
I wrapped myself in
when I didn’t know how to answer your lies
or how to speak when I needed to.

Maybe someday
you will walk past me
and I will walk past you,
nothing between us but the soft ache of silence.
Maybe.

Your small smile still stirs
that familiar churn beneath my ribs.
Maybe I am the problem,
but I will try not to hate myself
for the ending of a friendship
I fought to understand.

You had every right to act how you have,
And I’ve only now realized
how little we truly knew each other
despite all those hours we claimed we did.

Still, I imagine your arms,
the way I would sink into them
and cry until my chest emptied out.
Maybe some far-off August,
some impossible January,
I would hold you like I’d never let go again.

Sometimes I ask myself
what I’ve gained
by letting myself lose you.
Maybe time will open its quiet hands
and show me,
eventually.

For I have cried,
and I have hoped,
and I have wished,
and I have questioned every reason
I thought was enough.

Yet I still care.
Maybe you were only my emotions
wearing a familiar face,
but I still want
to hug you again,
to hold your hand
like the world hadn’t split between us.

What have I done?
Will I always feel this tremor
when you drift back into my thoughts?
Will I always wonder
about the things you told others
but never told me?

Will I always question
whether you’re lighter
without the weight of me?
Will I always carry
this quiet regret 
for choosing the path
that led away from you?

But love doesn't always return.
And I do love you.
Yet I am not sorry
for breaking the promise we made,
for ending the part of the story
that could no longer hold us.

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