Sometimes love walks into a room
and hears an echo that isn’t its own.
It says good morning,
But what you hear is
Every silence becomes a test,
Every pause is a prophecy.
You scroll through messages,
Measuring your worth
By the timing of a reply.
You smile,
But your body doesn’t believe you.
It remembers nights of doors slammed,
Voices that cut,
Hands that withheld.
It whispers, 'Be ready to run.'
So you love from the edge of the doorway—
Half in, half gone,
A hand always on the handle.
Friendships feel safer,
But even there,
You count the times you reached out first.
You wonder if they’d notice
The day you stopped trying.
Unhealed pain builds cities inside you,
Each street named after someone
Who promised to stay.
You keep walking them
Searching for closure
Like a child looking for a home
That no longer exists.
But someday,
A quiet hand will rest on your shoulder
And not demand anything.
It will say,
You can stop running now.
And your body will believe it.
The echoes will fade,
One heartbeat at a time.
