IS THIS WHAT I'VE BECOME

 Is this what I’ve become

a fragment of your memory,

a bundle of what ifs and quiet regrets?

I still find you in the smallest things,

Your scent which still lingers in your sweater,

in the quiet moments when everything slows down and I almost feel you near.

I wonder if you’d still recognize me now.

I’ve grown, I’ve changed, but some days I’m still a mess

a collection of broken dreams

and the pieces of the me you used to know.

There are parts of me that froze the day you left,

still waiting for your voice to tell me it’s going to be okay.

Sometimes I talk to you out loud,

just to fill the silence.

I imagine you’d laugh at that and say I’m being dramatic,

but listen anyway, the way you always did.

Other times, I write you letters like this one,

hoping somehow they’ll find their way to wherever you are.

I don’t know if you can see me,

but I hope you do.

And I hope when you look my way,

you’re still proud,

even of the fragile, stumbling version of me

that’s still trying to make sense of a world without you in it.