I was not her mirror,
nor she mine.
we were not possessions-
not the kind the world wraps
in vows and velvet.

but for a while, 
we lived-
we breathed-
we exhaled the same wind
we burned-
on the same trembling planet
under the same pale sky.

two ghosts of light-
crossing paths,
that was enough
to rupture the dark.

but for a flicker-
a breath,
a shared orbit of quiet mornings
and crooked shadows.
for one absurd
infinitesimal moment,
we existed-
on this strange blue planet,
two mistakes in time
that almost rhyme.

and somehow,
it was enough
to make the silence 
inside me hum like a hymn.
haunt me beautiful, 
haunt me beautifully. 

I was never hers
and she was never mine, 
she is not someone 
who belongs to anyone.

she was the kind of woman
you don’t wait for-
you just feel lucky
she walked past.
she is-
the dry rustle and torn pages
of forgotten books.

the wildness of flowers-
that grow without gardens 
and find their way,
in the broken pavements
the ones who dare the wind.

she haunts me gently-
her shadow in my room
and her ghost in my bones
not as a scream,
but as the hush
between waves,
like blood songs in my veins.

sweating with memory,
drencheched in what ifs,
like how the wind remembers
the shape of a window
long after it’s shut.

drenched in something
almost holy,
that was enough
to make my skin feel
like it belonged to something.

now I carry the ghost of her
not with blooming roses
not in longing,
no possession.
only presence-
a rebellion,
tender and unfinished.

We did not belong,
not in the way letters
find envelopes,
or raindrops cling to glass.

because love-
real love-
doesn’t always 
need a return address.
sometimes it just needs
a corner of your gut
that hurts good.

haunt me beautiful.
haunt me
like moonlight stays
on rooftops no one looks at.

and perhaps that is all
we are allowed-
to hurt beautifully
for what never had
the weight we bear
just to exist.

and so, I walk,
with a heavy heart,
through room of thoughts 
with all her echo.
all I ask-
stay blooming in my skull
just a moment longer.

because love,
real love-
even unspoken,
even unwelcome,
can sting so sweet
you are born a lazarus
once you learn to rise again.

stay,
alive in my head a little longer.
stay,
so that I may go on writing poems 
against forgetting.
stay,
so, I may keep on living 
fighting for surviving.