LITERARY | Conversations with the Version of Me You Loved

I think about you more than I admit.

You exist somewhere behind my ribs—

untouched, unfractured, still believing that love is something that stays once it arrives.

You smiled without calculation.

You trusted without rehearsal.

You handed your heart over like it was not breakable.

They loved you.

They loved how easily you unfolded.

How you did not mistake silence for warning.

How you mistook intensity for permanence.

I wonder what you would say if you saw me now.

I am slower.

I read between lines that may not even be there.

I hold my feelings like fragile glass, careful not to let them slip too far from my own hands.

Would you think I betrayed you?

Or would you understand that I am only what happens after?

You were all open windows.

I am locked doors with spare keys hidden in careful places.

Not because I want to keep people out—

but because I learned what it costs to leave everything unguarded.

Sometimes I miss how fearless you were.

How you loved without contingency plans.

How you thought being chosen once meant being chosen always.

I am not you anymore.

But I am not your ruin either.

I am what survived.

I am what remained after your departure.

I am the proof that even when love reshapes you,

you are still

someone worth loving —

just different.