In the kitchen

 Some nights feel like punishment.

The world sleeps, but my heart won't stop dragging me back to you.

I stare at the ceiling, tears finding their way without permission, while my mind keeps replaying stories that never even had a chance to be written.

Was it time that betrayed us?

Or were we always meant to be a memory, a lesson dressed as almost-love?

I wonder if in another life, our paths would have collided without resistance, no distance, no silence, no excuses.

But here, in this life, I'm left with heavy eyes, a restless heart, and the ache of everything that could have been.

I keep asking the night for answers, but it only throws back my own echoes.

Maybe silence is its way of reminding me that you were never mine to begin with.

Still, every shadow on my wall

reminds me of the spaces you never filled.

Every sigh I release feels like a prayer you'll never hear.

People say time heals but time only teaches me how to hide the scars.

It never erases the places where you once lived inside me.

…And so I stay awake, between reality and memory, holding onto the ghost of a love that never found its way home.

* In the Kitchen- Reneé Rapp 🎶*