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Date Published: February 13, 2025
Time Published: 5:00 PM
Category: Prose
Theme: Letting go of the memories and promises that you promised to keep.
The cold breeze brushes against my skin, seeping through the fabrics of my sweater. My fingers tighten around the worn ropes of the swing, fraying beneath my grip—like us.
Beside me, the other swing moves with the wind—empty. For a moment, I see you there again: feet barely touching the ground, hands gripping the ropes as you laughed, tilting your head toward me like you always did when you talked about the future–our future.
“We’ll buy a house, and adopt lots of cats,” you once said, your eyes twinkling with certainty. “After college, when things are easier, let's move out together?” You smiled with your eyes, and I nodded. Back then, it felt so real. How beautiful–the idea of us together, forever.
At first, we held on to that promise, convincing ourselves that love was enough to outlast the distance. But as time passed, we realized how naive we were. We thought we were immune to change, that life wouldn’t pull us in different directions. Little by little, everything changed–not all at once, but in fragments too small to notice at first.
The late replies.
The unreturned calls.
The quiet hesitations in your voice when I asked if you still missed me.
We kept telling ourselves it was temporary, that the distance between us was only a phase. Yet, as the days turned into weeks, and the weeks turned into months, without realizing it, we had become strangers with memories instead of lovers with a future.
At first, we tried. God, we really did. We made plans, set dates, and promised to visit each other no matter how exhausted we were. But life had other plans. The assignments, deadlines, unmatched schedule, piled up. One excuse turned into another, and before we knew it, we just… stopped trying.
It wasn’t that we stopped loving each other. Rather, we stopped choosing each other.
“What if we never outgrew each other?”
“What if we fought harder?”
Again and again, the questions loop in my head, over and over, but the answers never come. Maybe that's the thing about love–it isn’t just about holding on; it's also knowing when to let go.
I close my eyes, and for a brief moment, I can picture it—the life that we built together. A home where laughter replaced silence, free from the echoes of angry voices. e without screaming angry people around. The two children we named Clyde and Vienna. The way you’d capture moments through your camera lens.
I can almost hear us again, tracing our fingers across maps, whispering about Denmark, Paris, Switzerland—the places we swore we’d visit together one day.
And then, there’s the wedding we always talked about. Something small, intimate, just us and the people who mattered.
We spoke of it with such certainty, as if it were already real.
And then, just like that, it’s gone.
The swing beneath me sways softly, the wind nudging me forward. A silent reminder that it’s time to go.
But how do you walk away from something that was never yours to lose?
How do you grieve a love that was never given the chance to bloom?
My breath trembles as I exhale, watching it dissolve into the cold air. Slowly, my hands, once clenched so tightly around the ropes, loosen. The swing rocks back, weightless without me.
My breath trembles as I exhale, watching it dissolve into the cold air. My hands, once clenched so tightly around the ropes, loosen. The swing rocks back, weightless without me.
I rise to my feet and take slow steps forward, leaving behind not just the swing, but the weight of our memories.
This time, I won’t look back. Because now, I understand—some things aren’t meant to be ours to keep, no matter how much we wish they were.
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