You, As You Still Seem
Some things about you
do not move forward with time—
they remain,
as if they chose stillness
over becoming.
You exist there,
in a quiet suspension—
like mist resting over a valley
that cannot decide
whether to rise
or disappear.
And when I think of you,
it is never in motion.
It is always like this—
paused,
softened,
slightly blurred
at the edges,
as if memory itself
has learned
to breathe more slowly.
Some thoughts of you
arrive gently,
as though they have been waiting
for silence
to become deep enough.
Some come scattered—
like a bundle loosely tied,
holding fragments
that refuse
to stay together.
A glance.
A half-finished sentence.
The way you would stop
mid-thought
as if listening
to something
only you could hear.
And then there are others—
the deeper ones—
the ones that feel
like standing at the edge
of an unseen ocean,
knowing
there is more beneath
than you will ever reach.
You were always like that.
Light,
and yet impossible to hold.
Near,
and yet never entirely here.
Do you remember
how time used to behave
around you?
It did not pass—
it lingered.
It stretched itself
between moments,
as if unwilling
to let them end too soon.
When I met you,
the world did not stop—
but something within it did.
Something subtle.
Something precise.
A slowing
that could not be measured,
only felt.
And in that slowing,
everything seemed
complete.
There was no urgency then.
No sense of something missing.
Even silence
felt like it had arrived
exactly where it was meant to be.
But that time—
that quiet, suspended time—
has slipped somewhere
I cannot follow.
Now,
everything moves too quickly.
The same hours,
the same days—
but they do not stay.
They pass through the hands
like dry sand,
each grain
refusing
to be held.
And I wonder—
was it always like this?
Or was it you
who made time
forget how to rush?
Because now,
even stillness feels temporary.
Even pauses
seem to be moving.
And yet—
you remain.
Or at least,
you remain in me
as something unchanged.
I think of you
and I find myself smiling—
not because I know
who you are now,
but because
I remember
who you were
when everything felt
undisturbed.
Your eyes—
do they still hold
that same quiet depth?
The kind
that does not reveal itself
all at once,
but asks you
to stay
a little longer
than you intended?
There was something in them—
not sadness,
not joy—
something softer,
like water
holding the reflection of sky
without claiming it.
Do they still look like that?
Or has time
taught them
to become something clearer—
something easier
to understand?
And you—
do you still drift
into your own thoughts
without warning?
Do you still leave
mid-conversation,
not in body,
but in presence?
As if there were always
another world
running quietly
alongside this one—
and sometimes,
you chose
to be there instead.
Tell me—
do you still pause
while walking,
as if remembering something
you never fully forgot?
Do you still run
only to stop suddenly,
and stop
only to move again—
as though stillness
and motion
were never separate for you,
only different expressions
of the same restlessness?
And when the world
becomes too loud—
as it does now,
as it always has—
do you still search
for something quiet?
Something familiar
that does not ask
to be explained?
Do you still carry
that unspoken waiting—
the kind
that does not admit
what it is waiting for?
And if you do—
is there still
a trace of me
within it?
Or has that, too,
slipped away
like everything else
that once felt
certain?
Because I do not know you now.
Not really.
I only know
the version of you
that has refused
to leave me.
The one
who exists
outside of time—
untouched
by whatever came after.
But time does not spare anyone.
It moves through everything.
It reshapes,
redefines,
rewrites
even the most delicate truths.
And still—
you remain
as you were.
Not in the world,
perhaps—
but somewhere
within perception.
And I begin to understand—
it is not you
who stayed the same.
It is the feeling.
Memory does not preserve reality.
It preserves impact.
It holds onto the moment
where meaning was strongest—
and lets everything else
fade.
So you remain
not as you are—
but as you felt.
Soft.
Uncertain.
Deep in ways
that never demanded clarity.
There was something
almost playful in you too—
a lightness
that moved quickly,
like a small creature
darting between stillness
and motion.
Unpredictable,
yet strangely familiar.
You could pause
for no reason,
and then disappear
into movement
without explanation.
And even then—
you were never fully gone.
You lingered.
Like a thought
that never quite finished itself.
Even now,
when everything feels distant,
blurred,
slightly out of reach—
you remain
the clearest question.
Not because I see you—
but because I still
feel
the shape of your presence.
And perhaps
that is all
that was ever meant to remain.
Not certainty.
Not continuity.
But this—
this quiet wondering.
This gentle return
to a question
that does not demand
an answer.
You are still there—
in the space
between what was
and what might have changed,
in the pause
between two thoughts
that almost meet,
in the silence
that follows
something once understood.
And I—
I remain here,
not trying
to resolve you,
not trying
to find you
as you are now—
but simply
holding this:
that you exist
somewhere
between memory
and imagination,
between truth
and perception,
between what was
and what still feels
like it is.
And slowly—
without urgency,
without resistance—
I am learning
to let that be enough.
Because perhaps
you were never meant
to stay the same.
And perhaps
I was never meant
to know.
And perhaps—
this uncertainty,
this soft, unfinished knowing—
is the only way
you were ever meant
to remain.
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