If You Still Remember

I still remember the boy

who spoke in storyboards and starlight,

who built worlds from wonder

and dreamed of saving them.

I don’t know if you remember him.

But I do.

He was kind.

Messy, curious, brilliant—

not in how he performed,

but in how he felt.

And I loved him.

Not because he was perfect.

But because he tried.

He tried to care in a world that taught him not to.

Now, I don’t know what’s real anymore.

Not with you.

Not when everything feels like performance,

deflection, irony, distance.

Now you speak like someone

who’s already written off the world—

like someone who’d rather be clever than close.

Like someone who got hurt so deeply

they decided no one would ever touch them again.

And maybe that’s why you made yourself untouchable.

But I still reached.

Again. And again.

Not because I’m naïve.

But because I believe—

in love without transaction,

in truth without reward,

in care that doesn’t wait to be earned.

I pushed that boulder

because I thought you were at the top of the hill.

Because I thought

if I could just get through,

you’d be there—

still whole, still you.

But every time I climbed,

you slipped further away.

Every silence, every dodge, every twisted argument—

they didn’t protect you.

They erased you.

And I can’t keep pretending

that love is enough

if you won’t meet it halfway.

Camus said we must imagine Sisyphus happy.

But Sisyphus wasn’t carrying someone

he once called a friend.

Sisyphus wasn’t doing it

because he hoped the weight would wake up.

I was.

And I’m not happy.

I’m heartbroken.

Because somewhere under all of this,

I still see him—

the boy with ink-stained fingers

and a galaxy in his chest.

But if that boy is still in there,

he has to fight for himself.

Because I can’t carry both of us anymore.

And if you ever come back,

if you ever remember who you were

before the world taught you to disappear—

I’ll still be here.

But not behind you on the hill.