You Don't Remember Me, Do You?

I sit alone in the room that once held our laughter. These walls used to know your voice, your footsteps, your quiet humming in the morning. Now, only silence remains — thick and heavy, filled with memories I didn’t ask to keep. Time keeps moving forward, but a part of me is still stuck, frozen in the moments when you still loved me, when we hadn’t yet become strangers.

I trace the remnants of you: your favorite mug still on the shelf, the faint scent of your cologne clinging to the jacket you left behind, songs we used to sing together still echoing in the background. But they’re just shadows now. You’re not here. And I no longer know where to find you. I try to remember the last time you looked at me like I mattered. The way we used to hold hands, like nothing could pull us apart. But I realize now — it wasn’t the world that came between us. It was silence. Distance. All the words left unsaid.

Then last week, I saw you on the street. You were heading home from work. I wanted to call out your name but I couldn’t. My voice just stuck in my throat. I felt so small. All those memories just came flooding back. I didn’t mean to, but I ended up following you back here. I shouldn’t have done it, they told me to stop doing that.

I wonder if people are like echoes. When we’re gone, do we linger in the spaces we once occupied? Do our voices continue to be heard in the empty rooms of those we left behind? Or do we become forgotten at all, especially our voices?

I’ve always been a collector of moments. Little pieces of time that I hold onto, polishing them until they shine. I keep them in an invisible box, a treasure full of memories. And yet, there’s a part of me that feels the need to know that these moments were precious to someone else as well.

It’s a purely human one. We all want to matter, to leave a mark, no matter how small. To know that we were seen, heard, felt, and remembered.

I guess that’s all we really need in life, not simply to be remembered, but to have someone acknowledge that they remember you.

I figured life is too short to not tell someone the impact they had on you, regardless how big or small. So thank you, for reminding me that every person that I talk to, every person that I am near- I impact. And they, in turn, impact my life forever. This I believe.