How could I forget someone
who brought life into my life?
Someone who arrived
without realizing
they would change the colors of my world.
How could I forget someone
who shifted my perspective,
who challenged the way I saw myself,
who unknowingly handed me pieces of myself
I had not yet found?
How could I forget someone
whose existence affected me for the better?
I can’t.
And truthfully—
I don’t want to.
Because forgetting would mean pretending
those moments didn’t matter.
Pretending I wasn’t changed.
Pretending I didn’t learn
what it felt like
to care so deeply for another person.
I don’t regret a thing.
Not the conversations.
Not the memories.
Not the hopes we built
or the dreams we never got the chance to reach.
I carry all of it with gratitude.
Because for a while,
our lives crossed paths.
And because of that,
mine became richer.
Maybe that’s why
the hardest relationships
aren’t always the terrible ones.
Sometimes they’re the beautiful ones.
The ones that leave behind memories
you never wanted to lose.
The ones that continue living quietly
inside your favorite songs,
your old photographs,
the stories you tell,
and the person you eventually become.
And if one day
our steps happened to align again,
I wouldn’t promise anything.
I wouldn’t try to rewrite the past.
I wouldn’t rush to decide
what it all meant.
I’d simply walk for a while
and see where the road was leading.
Because life has taught me
that some people are meant to stay.
Others are meant to pass through.
And some—
some become part of your story forever,
whether they stay or not.
So no,
I could never forget you.
Not because I’m stuck.
Not because I haven’t grown.
But because your existence
left fingerprints on my life—
and the person I’m becoming
still carries traces of you.
And for that,
I will always be grateful.
Slow Burn Poetry 