Naturally in Love

Ever since I met you, I couldn’t force myself to love anyone else — because I was just naturally in love with you. It wasn’t something I had to try for. It wasn’t a choice or a plan. It simply happened. We talked, we met, I listened to your words, and just like that, I fell. Deeply. Effortlessly. You didn’t have to do much — you just stood there, and somehow, you took my heart with you.

I’ve let you go, or at least that’s what I keep telling myself. But sometimes, I still see traces of you in places you’ve never been or have. In the way someone laughs, and in the smallest things that shouldn’t remind me of you, but somehow always do. It’s almost unfair how easily your presence shows up in other people. I’ve let you go, yet there are nights when I still wonder, “Have I ever crossed your mind? Even for a moment?”

There are moments I wish I could say, with all the bitterness I could gather, “I wish I never met you. I wish I never knew you. I wish I never tried.” But no matter how many times I try to convince myself, I know I don’t mean it. Because even though we never became us, you were the part of my life that made me feel something again. You were my little sense of aliveness in a world that had gone quiet.

Maybe it’s not that I still love you. Maybe I just miss the version of myself that existed when you were around — the warmth, the quiet excitement, the hope. I keep thinking about how things might’ve been if we had just a little more time, or a different kind of luck. Would we still end up apart if the story had gone differently? Did I do the right thing by letting you go? I ask myself questions I know will never lead anywhere, but somehow, I keep asking anyway.

I think that’s what love like this does — it lingers. It doesn’t disappear, it just learns to stay quieter. You move on, you meet new people, you keep living, but some part of your heart still remembers the softness of what once was.