Where Light Once Lived

I used to hate when you called me.

Your name lighting up my screen felt like an interruption,

a tug at my attention,

a voice I didn't know how to make space for.

Funny how things change.

Now I don't know how to live without that sound.

There are moments when I still reach for my phone,

expecting it to buzz,

waiting for your name to appear like it used to — bright, familiar, steady.

And when it doesn't,

the silence feels heavier than any words could.

I need to hear your voice,

but I can't anymore.

It's strange how a voice can become a home,

and how lost you feel

when that home disappears.

I replay old memories like recordings,

trying to remember the tone of your laugh,

the softness you slipped into when you were tired,

the way your "hello" always felt like a door opening.

But you're gone.

And there's no number I can call,

no message I can send,

no way to reach the place where you are now.

People keep telling me that you can never be replaced

as if that's supposed to comfort me.

It doesn't.

It just reminds me of what I already know:

you were one of a kind,

and losing you feels like losing the part of myself

that only you understood.

You were the glue to my broken pieces.

You held the edges of me together in ways

I didn't even notice until you weren't here to do it.

Now those edges feel sharp again,

fragile, exposed.

I am shattered in places I didn't know could break.

And even if someone new comes along,

someone kind, someone patient,

even if they try to gently fit the pieces back where they belong,

I will never be the same.

I am changed in the shape of you.

A mark left behind by love, by loss,

by something too big to name.

I am the broken glass everyone steps around,

the piece that can't be smoothed back into what it was.

Not because I'm worthless…

but because I was once held by hands

that knew exactly how to catch the light in me.

No one else will ever hold me the way you did.

No one else will ever fit me the way you did.

You were the only one who knew how to make

the broken pieces feel like something whole.

And now I'm learning how to exist

in the quiet space your absence left behind,

trying to understand how someone can.

The lights flicker like distant stars,

pretending to care.

Down below, people walk fast and bundled,

rushing toward open doors, warm kitchens, familiar voices.

They are meeting their families,

the ones waiting for them, calling them home.

And I stand here,

wondering when "home" stopped being a place I belonged.

I think of you.

You were the one who made the world make sense,

the quiet shape in the chaos,

the person who saw me even when I tried to disappear.

You were my family in a world that felt too big,

too loud,

too empty.

And now you're gone,

leaving behind a silence that echoes

louder than any goodbye.

Sometimes I wish I'd never met you at all.

Because before you, the dark was just… dark.

Cold, yes.

Lonely, yes.

But familiar.

Then you came along and lit it up,

showed me warmth I didn't know existed.

And now the darkness feels sharper,

crueler,

like it's angry that I ever stepped out of it.

You were the light I didn't ask for,

the hope I didn't know how to carry.

And now I'm left holding the shadow of what used to be,

tracing the outline of a life that was almost enough.

People say time heals everything,

but they never mention how slowly it moves

when you're waiting for a heart to stop hurting.

They never mention how the world keeps spinning,

indifferent,

while you're still standing in the place

where everything fell apart.

I whisper to the empty room, "I miss you."

And the room whispers nothing back.

But I stay by the window anyway,

watching the lights blur and fade,

because a part of me still believes

that if I watch long enough…

a piece of you will find its way back to me.

Ever since you left,

I've been angry at my own body.

I look in the mirror

and don't recognize

the person staring back.

It feels wrong,

too loud in some places,

too quiet in others,

like it's betraying me just by existing.

You used to look at me

like I was enough.

Like every flaw was something you saw past

without trying.

But now, without your eyes

softening the edges,

all I can see are the pieces

I've never liked—

sharp angles, soft places, shadows

I can't hide from.

Some days I pick myself apart

without even meaning to,

finding reasons to hate

the reflection that comes back at me.

It's like losing you

stole the last bit of gentleness I had for myself,

and now all I have left are

the criticisms,

the comparisons,

the feeling that my body is

something I'm trapped inside

instead of something that belongs to me.

I know it's not your fault.

I know you didn't take my confidence with you.

But it feels like when you left,

you took the only version of me

that ever felt worth anything.

Now when I stand in front of the mirror,

the glass feels colder than it used to,

and I feel smaller than I ever thought I could.

Like I'm made of all the wrong pieces—

and you were the only one

who knew how to make them look like they fit.

And there are moments

I can't help but notice

how small I feel,

like the edges of me have been worn down

from looking too closely,

from dissecting every curve, every shadow.

My reflection is a photograph

developed without the light you provided,

showing only the poor architecture of my frame.

I feel like a room that's been rented out too many times,

used, but never truly loved,

and now the foundation has started to sink

without your steady weight to hold it level.

Some nights I lie awake,

tracing the shapes of my own hands,

wondering when the gentleness

I used to feel for myself

slipped through my fingers.

It's not that I want anyone else to fix me;

I just wish I could recognize myself again,

even in the mirror's cold glare.

I keep thinking maybe it's temporary—

maybe grief and loss

have just made my skin feel foreign,

like I'm wearing someone else's story.

But then the memory of you comes,

and it's sharp and soft all at once,

reminding me of a time

when the world felt warm,

and the person I saw in the glass

was someone I might have been proud to meet.

Now, most days,

I touch my own body

and feel a strange mix

of familiarity and betrayal.

I long for the day

I can look again

without noticing all the wrong pieces,

without wishing for flowers to bloom

where I've only seen

my own reflection.