September 5th

I set my heart down
like a glass on the table

clear,
breakable,
waiting for your yes.

And you said yes.

And suddenly,
happiness stopped being something imagined.

No more rehearsing it in my head.
No more wondering what it might feel like.

Only us.

We made memories
without knowing they were fragile.

Ordinary days
that somehow became highlights.

The conversations.
The laughter.
The places we went.
The things we did.

Those little moments
that didn't seem like they needed remembering then

because I thought
there would always be more of them.

I thought September 5th
would always be ours to circle back to.

A private anniversary
of courage.

Of the day I stopped protecting my heart
long enough
to place it in your hands.

And for a while

God,

I was glad I did.

But then
there was another night.

A conversation
I have lived through more times
than the night itself.

You said
it wasn't working.

And I searched for something

anything

some arrangement of words
that might keep us from becoming
something that was.

I wondered if I should fight harder.

Say more.

Ask another question.

Find the sentence
that would make you remember
everything worth staying for.

But every word felt like another step
toward a door
you had already decided to walk through.

And eventually...

I said yes again.

Not the yes from September 5th.

Not the hopeful one.

Not the trembling one.

Not the one that gave me you.

This time,

I said yes
to losing you.

Yes
to letting you go.

And I've wondered ever since
whether that was the right thing to do.

Eight months.

Eight months of replaying that night,
moving words around in my memory
as though the right combination
might somehow change the ending.

What if I'd said this?

What if I'd done that?

What if I'd fought a little harder?

What if letting you go
was the one thing
I shouldn't have done?

Because how do you call someone gone
when they still find you
every single day?

So I tried to outrun the echo.

Work.

Sweat.

Noise.

The gym.

Long days.

New goals.

Anything that could make my mind
too tired to remember you.

I buried what I could.

And when that wasn't enough,
I buried it deeper.

But somehow

you stayed.

At the back of my mind.

Quiet.

Relentless.

Unshaken.

And now...

the fifth is getting closer.

And everything
I thought I had buried
has learned how to breathe again.

Because this time last year,

I was counting down
to a beginning.

And this year,

I'm counting down
to a memory.

I keep wondering about
the September 5th that never was

the one where that night never happened.

Where we made it.

Where this September 5th
I would be looking at you
instead of looking back at us.

Maybe we'd laugh
about how nervous I was.

Maybe we'd remember that restaurant.

Maybe we'd talk about everything
that happened in the year between.

Maybe September 5th
would still mean us

instead of meaning
the day I was brave enough
to begin something
I would eventually have to mourn.

And sometimes,

I want to go back.

I want to sit beside
that version of myself
at that table

watching him place his heart
somewhere outside his chest

and tell him,

Hold it closer.

Guard it.

You don't know what this is going to cost you.

But...

that's the part
I can't settle.

Because if I stood beside him
knowing everything I know now

knowing the ending,

knowing the silence,

knowing these eight months,

knowing how much
I would still miss you

I don't know
if I would stop him.

Because before the hurt,

there was you.

There was us.

And it was beautiful.

So maybe I'd just stand there.

Say nothing.

And watch him
set his heart down again.

One year later,

I sit at that same table
inside my memory.

The glass
is still there.

But the chair across from me
is empty.

Only questions
where your hands used to be.

And I still don't know
whether September 5th
was the day I should have protected my heart

or the day
I was finally brave enough
to use it.

So I carry the day with me,

folded in my pocket,

worn at the creases

still tender,

still unfinished,

still mine.