by Fay

I am haunted by the kiss I never felt—

a spark that never touched my lips,

yet burns through my heart like an eternal flame.

A beauty, cold and motionless, like a statue:

still, profound, unreachable.

I cave into a shadow’s touch—

a touch I still crave.

Oh, lover… how blind you were.

Meant to stay, yet so incomplete.

A trance of lifelong dreams captured in a single gaze,

a moment that should have lasted forever,

but slipped into silence.

How I would give everything

just to feel the presence I once called ineffable.

Lover,

if you ever loved me as much as you claimed,

remember me in my feelings—

not in my form.

My creation could never compare

to the soul that burned for you.

“Broken down and hungry for your love

with no way to feel it.”

—Jeff Buckley

If this ever reaches you, my dear,

let it wrap around you like a soul-warming hug.

I am cold in desire, yet warm with passion—

suffocating in the memories

we never got to make.

The pages I wrote about you,

torn one by one

as you slowly faded.

I’ll stay until you leave me,

rotting in longing,

my body decaying with every goodbye you never said.

We were lovers fractured by the futures

we never lived.

A story meant to be endless,

but instead,

it led only to coldness and pain.

So we buried it alive.

You walk through your life

and I walk through mine,

carrying the ghost of a future

that still weeps quietly in the corners of our minds.

And yet—

I still love you.

In the most brutal, quiet way.

Not in letters.

Not in longing.

Not even in hope.

But in breath.

A love that cannot be expressed-

A love I still look for.

A love I try to look for in others.

You are my first love-

With that I hold true.

Memories incomparable to the ones I’ll make.

We existed between heartbeats,

in unfinished sentences

and moments that never touched the air.

A love exiled from time,

irrevocable

in its undoing.

Your absence sits beside me

like a shadow with memory.

Not quite gone,

not quite here—

just heavy enough to hollow my chest.

To look back would unravel me.

To name you

would summon the ache again,

and I have buried you

too carefully

beneath breaths that splinter

every time I remember.

-Fay