what remains after the fireworks

 

the calendar learns a new number,

but my chest doesn’t.

it still beats your name,

whether i want it to or not.

fireworks run across the sky,

everyone cheering for a new beginning.

i count backwards to the moment

you last looked at me

like i was still your home.

they say to “let go,”

as if love has an off switch,

as if memory doesn’t live in the body

in the way i reach for my phone,

hoping you texted me “i miss you a little,”

in the empty side of my heart,

in every song we liked.

that i pretend not to hear your voice in.

it’s a new year,

but i still wait for you in our special place,

still argue with the silence,

still believe in versions of us

that no longer exist anywhere.

i never fully accepted that you’re gone.

i carry you like proof

that i once mattered,

that something real broke inside me

and never fully healed.

but tonight,

when the clock finally gives up on us,

i open my hands.

ready or not,

i stop keeping you alive in my head.

i know you don’t belong to my future

only to the cold streets of rose-tinted memories,

a ghost that roams somewhere else,

no longer knocking on my thoughts.

the year moves forward.

my heart stays bruised,

but for the first time,

it’s empty enough

to breathe.