A restlessness lingers within me—though I’ve felt it countless times before. My chest swells, heavy not with joy, but with sorrow… with regret… with loss. Waves of these feelings strike me again and again, until it seems impossible to breathe without breaking.

Tell me—do you, too, feel what I feel? To me, it is punishment—an endless sentence engraved upon my heart. Time has moved forward, yet the wound remains unchanged. I have never released it, not even the smallest fragment.

Never have I known regret so profound. Forgive me—for my weariness led us both astray. It made us loosen our grip on love, forcing us to erase what our hearts still longed to keep. Not once did my heart whisper to let go, but reason demanded it.

And so, once again, we stand as strangers. You, and I. No longer present in each other’s worlds. The book we once wrote together felt so flawless, yet midway, its pages blurred into sorrow I should have never known. Now we return to the beginning—separated, unseen, unrecognized.

All that has happened—I tell myself—it was always meant to be. And yet, the hardest truth to hold is this; our story was never destined for a happy ending. Even now, my memory drifts back to places I swore never to revisit. And in those moments, I walk through it once more, while a quiet voice within me wonders—could we ever stop being strangers again?