Where Roots Diverge

We were once a tide, rushing in pulling back with the rhythm of trust Now, the ocean feels quieter its whispers lost between us I used to need your voice like air in a drowning chest but now silence feels less like absence and more like a friend I’d forgotten Living apart has drawn maps on us lines of independence territories of solitude I see you clearer now not through love’s rose glass but through the cracks we both carry The smallest things—your laugh too loud, my words too sharp— have grown into mountains we climb daily We stumble on every step, wondering if the summit is still worth it. I want to rewind to the beginning to when your smile was my compass But time doesn’t bend backward it only teaches us to march forward alone And, perhaps, love grows truer when we loosen our grip and allow rain fall where it will this loosening lets the world rush in This sudden distance between us feels less like loss, more like roots digging deeper in separate soils -