Sometimes I wonder
what would have happened
if life had been a little kinder to us.
Not perfect.
Just kinder.
If timing had loosened its grip.
If fear had spoken a little softer.
If distance had felt a little shorter.
Sometimes I wonder
what parts of your world
I never got the chance to know.
The routines.
The quiet mornings.
The stories you hadn’t told yet.
The version of your life
that existed beyond the moments
I was lucky enough to see.
And sometimes,
when a certain song finds me,
I catch myself revisiting places
that only exist in memory now.
Not because I live there.
Not because I’m trying to return.
But because they mattered.
They mattered enough
to still bring a smile to my face.
Enough for gratitude
to rise before uncertainty.
Enough for love
to find me first,
instead of despair.
Maybe that’s the hardest part.
Not that I lost you.
Not that things changed.
Not even the silence
that eventually settled
between where we were
and where we are now.
But that even now,
when I think of us,
my first instinct
is still gratitude.
Because before the confusion,
before the distance,
before all the unanswered questions
I still carry from time to time,
there was laughter.
There was comfort.
There was hope.
There was love.
There was a version of life
that felt a little brighter
simply because you were in it.
And maybe that’s why
I still write.
Maybe that’s why
certain songs still stop me in my tracks.
Maybe that’s why
some memories refuse to fade.
Because before everything became complicated,
there were good times.
Real ones.
Beautiful ones.
And I’ll never pretend
there weren’t.
Maybe that’s why
I still write about you.
Not because I can’t move forward.
But because moving forward
doesn’t require me
to forget you.
Because some people
become part of the way you tell your story.
And even now,
after all this time,
I still find myself
thinking of the good times.
Slow Burn Poetry 