Dear M.,

Some time has passed, but you still show up in my days in small, inconvenient ways. Not as a memory I choose, just as something that slips in when I'm not paying attention. A sound in another room. A thought that doesn't finish itself.
There's one night I keep circling back to without meaning to. February. Cold air. Too many things in my head. I remember the moment our eyes met and how the world hesitated, like it had forgotten what it was supposed to do next. Nothing dramatic happened after that. Things just felt... lighter. Like sorrow stepped back a little and gave me space to breathe.
You didn't try to fix me. You didn't ask questions I couldn't answer. You just existed near me in a way that made everything else feel less loud. Being around you didn't solve anything, but it made the weight of things easier to carry.
You felt like a cold summer night by the sea. Not warm, not intense, just steady. Waves talking to the shore. The kind of quiet that understands without needing words.
After you, I started noticing things again. Music. Sunsets. The sound of my own laugh when it wasn't forced. I didn't become someone new. I just stopped feeling so alone inside myself.

Then the air changed.

Not suddenly. Not violently. Just... differently. Rooms felt bigger. Voices felt sharper. Nightmares came back with their old habits. I learned how to smile again, but it didn't live in my eyes.
Now every joy feels borrowed, like I'm wearing someone else's happiness for a few seconds at a time. In quiet moments, my hands still pause like they're waiting for something they forgot how to ask for. In sleep, my mind still rebuilds you from fragments... a voice, a look, the way you stood like the world wasn't too much.

The world went cold again. Not cruel. Just distant.

And I still haven't figured out what left with you.