Something I Wanted To Say
Someone wished me today.
Just three words...
"Happy Friendship Day."
Funny,
how three ordinary words
can walk into a room
and wake up ghosts.
I remembered the kid
who stood at the edge of every classroom,
laughing half a second later than everyone else,
never because the joke wasn't funny,
but because he was busy wondering
if they were laughing at him.
People called it shyness.
They never saw
how loneliness learns to wear silence
so no one asks questions.
Then...
Something happened.
Well you
You never asked me
why I spoke so little.
You just kept a place beside you
until one day
I forgot to be afraid.
I don't remember
when you became my best friend.
I only remember
that the world stopped feeling like
something I had to survive.
We had ridiculous plans.
The kind only young people make.
We spoke about futures
as if they belonged to us.
We were going to grow old
laughing about how young we once were.
God listened.
He just...
changed the ending.
People say
time heals.
I think time just teaches you
how to limp
without explaining
why one leg still hurts.
So I locked every door inside me.
Years passed.
I worked.
I achieved.
Collected skills,
contracts,
recognition.
It was strange.
The higher I climbed,
the emptier the view became.
Because success
has never learned
how to sit beside me
when the room is quiet.
Then I tried again.
I walked into new places.
Learned new names.
Opened old scars
and called it trust...
I gave people
the version of me
I had spent years protecting.
Time.
Effort.
Pieces of myself
I will never get back.
They smiled.
Some left.
Some taught me
that being needed
is not the same
as being chosen.
And every goodbye
found the same old wound
without ever looking for it.
It's strange.
No one notices
how a person changes
after they've watched enough people disappear.
You stop asking,
"Will they stay?"
You start asking,
"How long until they leave?"
And that question
is a terrible way
to love someone.
Because every laugh
already sounds like a memory.
Every hello
carries the weight
of its future goodbye.
Sometimes I wonder
if I ever wanted
any bond...
Maybe...
I only wanted
one place
where I didn't have to wonder
whether I belonged.
People say,
"You'll find your people."
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Hope has knocked on my door
so many times
wearing different faces
that I've forgotten
what certainty looks like.
So today,
while the world celebrates friendship,
I quietly mourn
every version of myself
that believed
this time
would be different.
If bonds are meant for me,
let them come
without teaching me
another lesson in loss.
And if they are only meant
to pass through my life,
then let them pass
before they become
another home
I have to learn
to live without.
Because I am tired.
Not of loving.
Never of loving.
Only of surviving
what comes after.
"Let's see what happens"
