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Is this what we have become?
Two people living under the same roof, not speaking a word, fallen into a routine that does not include the other?
Your brown eyes are a vast emptiness, not the ocean that once filled my soul. Your tidy black hair once lingered between my fingers. Now, you shake me off like a mosquito, an annoying buzz you swat away. Your hands, once gentle and shaking, now leave bruises and dismiss me.
You move around me with practiced indifference, as if we rehearsed this distance a thousand times. There was a time you reached for me without thinking. Now you flinch like touch itself is a burden. The floorboards know more about our silence than our lips know about goodnight.
Is this what we are supposed to be?
The house still carries traces of us—two mugs left by the sink, the dent on the sofa cushion where you used to rest your head on my lap while we watched meaningless shows just to be close. Now we sit on opposite ends, screens lighting our faces instead of each other’s laughter. Even the walls seem to hold their breath when we pass by, afraid to witness the collapse of something that once felt eternal.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped fighting for us. I don’t remember when exactly, maybe it was the day you stopped looking for me when you entered a room.
Some foolish part of me still watches your face when I speak, waiting for a flicker of the man I married.
You don’t even notice I’m watching you.
