WHEN YOU STOPPED BEING MINE

I still know the sound of your key in the door. Funny what the heart keeps when it should let go. Your side of the bed is colder now, I still leave a little space somehow. I changed the sheets, I moved the chair, but every room remembers you were there. I took your picture off the wall, but blank space doesn't help at all. Memory doesn't need a frame— it finds a hundred ways to say your name. I thought goodbye would be a moment, one last look, one closing door. I didn't know that losing someone could make them feel closer than before. When you stopped being mine, you didn't stop being everywhere. In the songs I skip, the streets we knew, in the silence sitting next to me. When you stopped being mine, I thought missing you would fade. But love doesn't leave when people do, it just learns to live another way. I know I don't want you back, I just wish I knew how to stop loving someone who stopped being mine. I heard you're doing better now, someone said you've got your old smile back. I said, “I'm glad,” and meant it too, then drove past our old street and thought of you. I've met people, I've tried again, learned how to stay when someone lets me in. But every time it starts to feel like home, some part of me still reaches for what's gone. Maybe healing isn't forgetting, maybe time doesn't erase what we were. Maybe moving on is learning to remember without wishing you'd stayed. When you stopped being mine, you didn't stop being everywhere. In the songs I skip, the streets we knew, in the silence sitting next to me. When you stopped being mine, I thought missing you would fade. But love doesn't leave when people do, it just learns to live another way. I know I don't want you back, I just wish I knew how to stop loving someone who stopped being mine. If I saw you tomorrow with somebody holding your hand, I'd want to be the kind of man who could smile and understand. And maybe I would mean it. Maybe part of me would break. Some loves don't need another chance— they just take longer to end. When you stopped being mine, you didn't stop being everywhere. Now I can hear those songs again, walk our old streets without you there. When you stopped being mine, I thought I'd always feel that way. But love can stay and still grow quiet, and memory can lose its weight. I know I don't want you back, and now I finally know: I can keep the love we had without needing you to still be mine. I still know the sound of your key in the door. I just don't wait to hear it anymore.