Pressed Between Pages
You became
the person
my mind reached for first.
Before happiness settled,
before anger cooled,
before heartbreaks found language,
before I could even understand
what I was feeling—
there was always
the quiet instinct
to tell you.
Somewhere between
midnight wishes,
half-written notes left between diary pages,
small temple offerings carried back with careful hands,
and colors gifted to someone trying not to become dull—
you stopped being
just a person I knew.
You became
a habit of comfort.
A place my thoughts returned to
without asking permission.
I told you
about family storms,
friendships falling apart,
people I loved and people I lost,
small victories no one else noticed,
and the versions of myself
I hid from the world.
A strange thing,
to build a home
inside conversations.
And perhaps
that is why
the silence felt unbearable.
Because how was I supposed to understand
that someone could remember
the exact hour of your birthday,
and still forget
the weight of their absence?
For the longest time,
I mistook your distance for my fault.
Folded myself smaller.
Stayed away quietly.
Learned how to carry confusion
without letting it spill into anyone else’s hands.
And still,
at the edge of goodbye,
after days of silence carefully stretched between us,
you stopped me
with gratitude soft enough
to reopen wounds
I had almost convinced myself were healing.
I remember
the way your expression changed.
I remember
how I only smiled—
small, sad, careful—
because I did not trust myself to say anything more.
And then I turned away,
walked a few steps,
and broke quietly
where you could no longer see me.
Funny,
how a simple “thank you”
can ache more
than silence ever did.
Now when I look back,
nothing feels unreal.
Not the warmth.
Not the hurt.
Not the confusion
of being appreciated and abandoned
in the same breath.
Not even the way
I kept protecting your feelings
while quietly abandoning my own.
Just human.
Just unfinished.
Just another chapter
I no longer wish to revisit,
yet still carry carefully—
like pressed paper
between the pages of a diary
I do not read anymore,
but cannot bring myself to throw away.
Bhuvi Arora is an emerging poet based in Agra, India. Writing primarily about memory, emotional resilience, and connection, she uses narrative verse to explore the lasting echoes of human relationships.
