and suddenly we are strangers

Photo by Deva Darshan on Unsplash

I still remember the way your laugh used to fill up a room —

not because it was loud,

but because it reached me.

Now, when I think of you,

I realize I don’t even know what city you live in.

I don’t know what makes you cry anymore,

what songs you play when you’re alone,

or who you text when the world feels too heavy.

And what’s worse is:

I’m not sure you remember those things about me, either.

Time is cruel like that —

it doesn’t always steal in storms;

sometimes it just pulls the thread slowly

until one day you wake up

and realize the person you once called your favorite

feels like a name you’re not sure how to pronounce anymore.

We never fought.

We never ended.

There was no closure, no clean break,

just a slow drifting — like boats caught in different currents,

waving once, then never again.

One moment we didn’t talk for a while.

And then suddenly,

we were strangers.

Sometimes I scroll through your old messages,

trying to pinpoint when the change happened —

what I missed,

what I didn’t say,

what I could’ve done to slow the fading.

But relationships are living things, aren’t they?

You have to feed them, water them,

and I guess we both just —

forgot.

Or maybe we thought we had more time.

Now, I pass someone on the street

with your haircut,

your coat,

your walk —

and I almost say your name.

But I don’t.

Because I don’t even know

if you’d answer anymore.

And I think that’s what hurts the most —

not the absence,

but how normal it has become.

How silence

replaced conversation,

how memories

replaced presence.

How you,

once a whole chapter,

are now a footnote I reread in quiet disbelief.

And somehow,

after everything,

I still hope you’re okay.

Even if I’ll never get to know for sure.