Remembered

In the hush between heartbeats, you stay,
a face soft as evening prayer,
eyes lit like forgotten constellations,
beauty quiet, maybe not demanding worship
yet impossible to forget entirely.

I once held hope like breath,
believing fate wrote something here,
your smile a sunrise I chased,
warmth I mistook for promise,
light I reached toward, trembling.

You were gentle thunder in silence,
a tenderness wrapped in distance,
a sweetness I tasted in dreaming,
never mine, yet deeply felt,
happiness aching inside longing.

I grieved the almost ‘we were’,
the touch that lived in imagination,
the future that flickered and faded,
a story written in soft sand,
washed clean by steady tide.

Now I walk forward, slower, wiser,
your beauty lingers, soft and bittersweet,
not wound, not flame, just an echo,
a ghost of a smile in memory,
warm enough to hurt, gentle enough to leave.

And still, in rare quiet evenings,
I feel you like fading perfume,
a tender ache under my ribs,
a gift I could not keep,
a love unheld, yet once real.

Nice to have, not a must,
yet sometimes, I miss you anyway,
in ways I never admit aloud,
moving on, but never erasing,
carrying you like dusk carries light.