Writers 
Maybe in another universe, I’ll walk past you,
No lump in my throat, no tears fighting through.
There, your name will just be a name.
Not a trigger. Not a prayer. Not a wound I keep reopening with my tongue.
I won’t flinch at the sound of it in a crowd,
won’t turn my head too fast, won’t hold my breath.
I’ll hear it and keep walking.
In that universe, I learned early how to let go.
I didn’t confuse loyalty with survival.
I didn’t mistake your absence for a test I had to pass.
I didn’t sit in the quiet after our fights
and convince myself that silence meant you were thinking of me too.
There, I don’t carry the memory of your hands like evidence.
I don’t replay the last good day to prove it was real.
I don’t catalog the ways you almost stayed.
I walk past you and my chest stays even.
No ache. No phantom warmth. No ghost of us trailing behind me.
I want that version of me so badly it hurts.
The one who doesn’t measure rooms by whether you’re in them.
The one who doesn’t flinch at songs, at streets, at 2:17am.
The one who didn’t learn love by bleeding for it.
Maybe in that universe, I was loved gently from the start.
Maybe I never had to earn peace.
Maybe I never had to become strong just to survive softness.
But I’m not there yet.
Here, I still brace myself when I hear you.
Here, I still wonder if you think of me too.