LOVE IN REWIND

I had him once,

not in promises, not in forever,

but in the quiet way he showed up 

every ping, every concern,

a presence I mistook for permanence.

Back then, I was blind,

too careless to see that care

isn't ordinary,

it's rare.

So I let it slip,

thinking he would always stay.

But love never waits

for the ungrateful.

He left,

not with anger,

but with a silence sharp enough

to slice through my arrogance.

He loved someone else,

and suddenly I learned

what loss tastes like 

not fire , not thunder, 

but like a song that stops midway,

and your lips still move to words

that no longer exist.

I tried to outrun it,

falling into arms that felt

more like bandages than love.

But healing borrowed from strangers 

never lasts,

and soon, I was back to the silence

he once filled.

Then came the return.

Not as mine,

not with love,

but with wit, laughter,

and the cruel kindness of friendship.

We would talk till dawn,

about nothing, about everything,

the absurd, the philosophical,

the kind of conversations

that stitched themselves into memory.

I would scold him to sleep early,

while knowing too well

I was the reason his nights

forgot how to end.

And in that mess,

it felt like home.

The little lies,

the random pings,

the warmth hidden inside sarcasm

all of it so dangerously cozy,

as if the universe had designed him

just to fit me.

I was nineteen then,

I am twenty-five now.

And yet,with him,

time folds in half.

The same thrill,

the same comfort,

the same illusion

that he was made for me.

And yes, like a fool,

I fell again

not just for him,

but for the gravity of us,

the way even distance bent itself

to keep him close.

And maybe I should laugh at myself here 

who else but me would fall twice

for the same unfinished story,

scribble heartache into verses,

and call it poetry instead of proof

that I never learn?

Now we are "just friends"

The safest lie ever invented.

Call it love,

call it stupidity,

call it gravity dressed as longing.

And so I keep carving him into verses,

half confession, half comedy,

as if words could rewrite a past

I was too careless to hold.

Damn me...

the girl who thought care was ordinary,

who didn’t grab his sleeve

before he walked away.

Now I stitch poems like apologies,

hoping he will read between the lines,

hoping he will see,

this time I know what it means,

this time I know what it costs

to lose someone twice

and still call it fate,

when really, it was me.

All I know is 

he was the lesson,

he is the echo,

and maybe I will always be

the girl who mocks herself

while secretly writing poems

about the same man…

twice.