Echo's of Us

First love--
These words, unspoken and raw,
years pass, yet your shadow lingers,
etched into the sound of a worn vinyl record.
I recall the verse of your song,
a fragile confession of why you are broken,
while you kept parts of yourself hidden,
guarding a truth that hurts too much to own.

That sacred moment--
a scar that whispers secrets,
too brittle to survive.
Now I wander through hallways of our past,
your green eyes--
piercing the hollow spaces of memory,
haunting me with the weight of what was lost.

The bitter burn of whiskey,
the residue of regret--
these remain,
reminders of the words you never spoke,
the ones I needed to heal.
You urged me to leave, to fly,
to conquer this life.
But my wings feel heavy,
a descent into the raw, relentless pain
of a love that both shaped us and shattered us,
leaving wounds that time only deepens.

Music is stained by you.
Woven into every note,
recalling to me both what you gave
and what you took away.
Your pain bleeds through every lyric,
questioning me,
forcing me to question myself:
Is it my memory that chains you to the dark?
When will songs ever lose your echo?

I hope you found peace in my songs for you.
I hope your soul rests like it did in my arms.
My love falling around you like a perfect harmony, a warm melody that lingers,
but that failed to heal.

Our memories are our secret--
only we can navigate their corridors,
only we bear the weight
of love that devoured and pain unspeakable.
We know the agony of unravelling two souls,
once certain they'd found home,
only to carve a void,
grasping at fragments too broken to mend.

The void remains--
I needed you to love me,
more than the numbness you drowned in.
I thought if I could piece you together,
I might somehow make myself whole.
But it was you who broke the chains, that bound us
pleading for my freedom,
as if I had ever wanted to be free.
Yet you never truly left, did you?
How can I grasp joy
when your absence lingers like a breath I can't release?
Perhaps my soul remains entangled
in the silhouette of yours.

I am rich with reason to smile--
I became the shape of your longing, moulded my life into what you dreamt for me.
But love is never selfish,
So now I carry the weight of what was broken,
the ghost of what we almost had,
knowing love was never meant to be won,
only given, only lost.

What peace exists at the bottom of an empty bottle?
I'm still tracing the outline of what we were,
still searching for myself in the wreckage of us.
I once made a home in your sorrow,
and now, without it,
I don't know where I belong.
In dreams, I bear your sorrow, grasping for the moments you escape your demons.
Release me from this endless ache--
find the strength to let go.
My soul will not rest
until you are at peace.
I wait for you still,
hoping you can heal enough
to set me free, and rise beyond the grip of this endless night.

Time slipped away as I watched you spiral,
and I needed to reach you, to speak, to be heard
but you were only there in fragments--
the version of you clouded by liquor,
a hollowed shell, shrinking deeper into your shame.
You pushed me away,
the distance growing,
until I became a stranger.
You left me no choice,
no escape but to walk away.
You gave me only one option:
leave, or be consumed
by the slow, painful erosion of you.

You crafted a shrine for me,
adorned me with wings,
elevated and sacred, untouched by your secrets.
Your last chance at redemption,
a sanctuary where you hid from yourself.
Your perfect lie--
an illusion of salvation.
Once shattered, your adoration
twisted into disdain.
The hand that shaped my wings,
became the force that broke them.
And now, you watch me fall
from the heights you once placed me upon.

Yet I release you, I forgive you,
Love, a quiet thread that ties us still,
A spark woven into the fabric of time,
Never truly gone, but transformed,
gently fading
into the glow of what we were.
I return sometimes to those moments,
not with longing, but with reverence--
like that stolen kiss--,
unexpected, breathless,
the words "I love you" spilling from me,
uncontainable, truthful,
your arms, holding me,
an electric hum between us.

This is how I'll hold us--
in the warmth of what we were,
not in the sorrow that followed.
When you remember me,
let it be the quiet depth of my love that remains,
the warmth of my hand resting softly on your cheek,
the steady, unwavering gaze that held you,
unchanged by time.
Let that be what stays with you--
not the deafening silence that followed,
not the weight of what we lost,
but the light that we held, even just for a moment, so close to perfect but fragile.
Not perfect enough.