Remember When?

Poem by alarminglytired

Do you remember when I first realized you were growing up?
I don’t think you do, because I never told you.
But I was crestfallen.
There I was standing in the aftermath
of you packing up our childhood in a suitcase,
bursting at the seams with all the giggles
and innocence we once cherished,
as if you were so eager
to leave me behind,
to zip it up and walk away.
Each thread of you,
a memory woven tight.
A ghost haunting the air between us,
whispering secrets only I could hear,
secrets that unraveled my heart
with every breath I took.

Do you remember when we slowly
stopped talking to each other?
It was terrifying,
watching you shed bits of yourself,
discarded like yesterday’s news.
Like crumpled pages of a story
I thought we were still writing.
The ink barely dry,
as if you believed
the future holds no room
for the little pieces
that once made you you.
The echoes of our pretend plays,
the warmth of innocent dreams,
crushed beneath the weight
of a new world you’ve gone chasing.
A world that feels foreign,
as if it were designed
to erase everything we built
with our hands and hearts.

And oh, do you remember how much you thrive
without those fragments—
the ones I cradle,
the ones I revisit
like old love letters
written in your laughter,
that escaped from the lips that told
me, “I’ll never leave you behind,”
when I voiced these fears of you growing up.
Do you remember when I told you that?
Yet here I stand, alone.
Each word a whisper of who you were,
before you slipped
into someone new,
an evolving shadow,
a flicker of light
dimming just out of reach,
leaving me standing in this twilight,
clinging to the fading glow,
my fingers tracing memories
that slip away like sand,
each grain a reminder
of the child who once danced
in the sunlight of my embrace.

And do you remember when you asked me
why I am still tracing the outlines of your absence?
Why do I still wrap my arms
around the lost parts of you?
Why do I hold them close,
so close my bones break,
splintered beneath the pressure
of your absence,
the struggle to breathe
in the emptiness
you’ve left behind—
an abyss where memories linger,
a haunting refrain
of “Remember when?”
that echoes louder
with every step you take away,
each footfall a distant drum,
thundering in my chest
like the wretched tolling of a bell
that rings only for the lost.

Do you remember the time
when you finally saw me again?
Just for you to talk about how great
you’re doing without me.
How your world keeps turning,
while I’m still learning,
reeling from the way you carry on
with me gone.
Remember when you had to ask me if I was happy for you?
And without missing a beat, I replied “I always am.”
You were my mirror,
a visage of a person I aspire to be.
Now I gaze into silence.
Because I didn’t know,
I didn’t know
I was holding my breath,
my heart in a fragile cage,
until you took your first step away,
and I gasped, grasping at the air,
realizing your absence is a vast space,
a chasm where your ghost might sit,
just out of reach,
filling the silence with everything
we used to be.

Remember when you left me to
stumble through our memories?

The moments that flicker
like dying stars,
each one a reminder
of our constellations,
lost in the dark,
the black canvas of my longing
stretching infinitely,
with no hope of return.
So here I stand,
in this empty room,
screaming the echoes of what once
was, my love, my loss,
waiting for your shadows
to return and teach me
how to breathe again,
to remember the rhythm
of our heartbeats intertwined, to
feel the weight of your laughter
like the cherished blanket
we used to make play forts,

woven from the threads
of who we were,
a tapestry unraveling
with each passing moment, so I
might gather the fragments of
this shattered dream,
and in the quiet,
find a way to let go,
while still holding on,
to the bittersweet taste
of everything
that made us whole,
the remnants of a smile
that made forever feel like a
ghost I can never quite catch,
always just beyond my reach,
forever haunting my waking
hours, filling my nights with a
sorrow that blooms like a withered
flower, its petals falling,
one by one,
until you remember when.