The One I Let Go

She was a quiet kind of beautiful,
the kind that sneaks up on you,
like when you finally clean your room and realize
damn, this place had windows the whole time.

She would change her hair, her clothes,
her laugh, her favorite shade of lipstick,
spinning like a broken Rubik’s cube,
hoping one day I’d figure her out.
But I was too busy looking past her,
searching for something I already had,
too scared to hold it, too dumb to say it.

I loved her—God, I did—
but love sat in my throat like an unpaid bill,
like a "maybe next time" I kept forgetting to cash in.
I let my past turn me into a fortress,
a vending machine that ate her quarters
but never gave her what she paid for.

She wanted only me.
And I made her feel like she was standing in an empty store,
shouting into aisles stocked with my silence.
She started changing, hoping I’d notice.
And I did—but I never told her.
I just watched, hands in my pockets,
like a man too proud to admit
he doesn’t know how to dance
but won’t leave the dance floor either.

Then one day, she was gone.
No announcement, no fireworks—
just silence where her trying used to be.
Now she’s with a man who doesn’t need
a damn instruction manual to love her.
A man who sees what I was too blind to say out loud.

And me?
I’m out here kissing the wrong lips,
holding hands that don’t fit,
trying to fill an empty chair
with people who don’t sit like she did.
I pretend it doesn’t hurt.
I joke. I laugh. I say I’m fine.

But some nights, when the world quiets down,
I hear her voice in the wind,
soft as a last chance I never took.

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