Back in 2006, there was a person who blogged every single day. Her blogspot had âDonât love you no moreâ playing in the background (on repeat) and i read every single post, religiously - hoping, maybe one day, sheâd write something about me. Every time i visited, that song greeted me like a memory waiting to happen. It became a soundtrack to a quiet longing i never spoke aloud. She was dating someone then, and i was just⊠quietly watching from the sideline.
It was during a trip that i found out the âbrokeâ happened - reading alone amidst the wind blowing through my face - at the dormitory balcony. I donât know why that moment stuck with me, but it did. Maybe because it felt like the soundtrack suddenly made sense. Or maybe because i thought just maybe - there was a glimpse chance of, i donât know, just nothing with no passing mention. Just a silent reader, watching in the shadows, hoping for something that never came. No sideline glances or hidden clues, just silenceâŠ
I remember that year so vividly. The internet felt raw, personal and beautifully imperfect, back then. People poured their hearts into blog post, not for the likes or followers but because they needed to be heard - even if only by strangers. Those words were fragments of her soul, scattered across digital pages - heartbreak, happiness - it was all laid out in HTML and emotion. Itâs like every post was a confession, every playlist a mood, every blog a diary left open for someone to find. I followed her story like a silent character in her life.
She did not blog about me - no mention of âsidelineâ whatsoever. Her words werenât for me, but i held onto them anyway. In reality, it hurts but iâll never forget how that song, that blog, that moment and that person made me feel.
A Quiet Promise, Once MadeâŠ
That someone, long ago, who meant more to me than she probably ever knew. In the silence between us, I carried a promiseâto be her strength when things fell apart, to hold space when the world felt too loud. Not out of regret, but because some feelings donât fadeâthey just settle into the corners of who we are.
I wanted to be her constant, her calm, her home. Even when life pulled us in different directions, that feeling never really left, like a soft echo in the chest. It wasnât just loveâit was a vow I made in my heart even if no one knew about it. That love didnât need to be returned to be real. It existed. It changed me. And in a way, it still lives in a way - One I kept quietly, even when they were no longer mine. This kind of love that doesnât scream, It whispers, It lingers and matures into something sacredâsomething that doesnât need to be seen to be real.
I once told her - not in grand declarations, but in the soft, trembling honesty that only comes when youâre afraid to lose something real that i had placed her in my heart and thrown the keys into the sea but because i didnât want anyone else to ever reach that part of me again. She didnât ask for that promise. she didnât need to.
When she sent me that song, it was like she handed me a mirror and said, âthis is how it felt for me too.â And in that moment, i knew i was already too far gone. Not in love with the idea of her, but with the quiet truths she carried, the way she made the world feel less heavy and the way she made me feel seen. I donât know if she remembers. I will never know if she ever plays that song anymore but i do. Sometimes late at night, when the world is quiet enough for memory to speak.
And every time, i feel the weight of that key still resting at the bottom of the sea - right where i left it right where sheâll always be. And if by some miracle she ever finds her way here to this quiet corner of the internet where i still keep her name folded between the lines - i hope she knows:
this was always for her.
and it always will be.
Some promises fade. Some are broken gently, with time or forgetting. But this one - this one never asked to be unmade. It simply stayed beneath the tide, beneath the years, beneath everything i became after her.
*A Letter to Me Who Loved Quietly - in the shadows*
[For 9 September 2007]
Hey you,
I see you.
The way you looked at her like she was the calm in your storm. The way you held your breath around her, not out of fear, but because you didnât want to disturb something so delicate.
You wanted to be her constantâher quiet place, her shelter, her home. And even when life pulled you both in different directions, you never stopped holding space for her in your heart.
You never said it out loud. You didnât need to. Because what you felt wasnât just loveâit was a vow. A silent promise to care, to protect, even if she never asked for it.
She didnât have to love you back. You never needed that to make it real. Because it was real. It changed you. It softened the edges of who you were and taught you how deep your heart could go.
You carried that love quietly, even when she were never yours. Not out of regret, but because some loves donât endâthey just find new ways to live inside us.
And now, years later, you still love with that same depth, that same patience, that same quiet fire. You didnât lose anything. You became someone more.
âAlmost Love, Always Feltâ â and the silence that followedâŠ
We were never a couple, no anniversaries, no photos, just photo from the memories. Two souls who love in the quiet and recognized something in each other that felt like home.
For a brief, fragile moment, we stood at the edge of something realâsomething that couldâve been everything. We had a heart-to-heart every single night. The kind of night that strips you bare. But then she said something Iâll never forget:
âI donât want to hurt youâ
She wasnât pushing me away. She was trying to protect me. From herself, from the unknown. From the possibility that love, once touched, might break us both.
And IâI was young. Too young to understand that love always carries risk. Too naive to fight for something that didnât come with guarantees. So instead of holding on, I let go. I pushed her away. Not because I stopped loving her but because I didnât know how to stay when things got real.
There was no betrayal. No harsh goodbye. Just a slow drift. A silence that grew louder with time. She waited and waited. Until one day, she stopped waiting and walked away with grace I didnât deserve.
We were never together but we were something. Something that still lives in the quiet corners of my heart. In the way I hesitate when someone new gets too close. In the way I still remember the moment when she said she didnât want to hurt meânot realizing that leaving without trying, hurt more than anything else ever could.
If I could go back, Iâd tell her that love doesnât need to be perfect to be worth it. That I wouldâve taken the risk. That I wouldâve chosen her to be with her, even if it meant breaking. But time doesnât give us do-overs. Only echoes. And this is mine. A love that never had a name.
Just a date.
A memory.
Archives.
And a heart that still whispers,
âWe were almost everythingâ
And to YouâŠ
And if somehow, youâre hereâif these words find their way to you in the stillness of a late night, when the world is quiet and your heart is softer than you let on, i hope you know this was always about you.
You, who once said you didnât want to hurt me.
You, who loved me in silence,
the same way I loved you.
You, who waited longer than I deserved.
I donât know where life has taken you and how have you been. But I hope, just once, youâve thought of me when a certain song played or when the sky looked the way it did that day. I hope youâve wondered if I ever looked back.
Because I did. I still do. Not with regretâbut with a kind of ache thatâs become part of who I am. You were never just a chapter. You were the turning point. The before and after. The almost that still echoes like a prayer I never stopped whispering.
And if youâre reading this now, know that I still carry youâ not in longing but in reverence. In the quiet way someone carries the memory of a first sunrise. Not to chase it again but to remember how it felt to be lit from within.
You were never something I needed to reclaim. You were something I will always remember. Like the first time the sky turned gold and everything felt possible. You were that momentâbrief, breathtaking, and unforgettable. Not because I want to go back but because I want to honor what it meant to feel that kind of light. To be seen, to be known. To be changedâquietly, forever. Some people chase their sunrises. I just close my eyes and remember mine.
And if youâre hereâif these words feel like they were meant for youâjust leave a heart to this note. No words, no message, just that one small sign, so Iâll know you found me again, even if only for a brief 100 milliseconds.
I guess iâll never knowâŠ
Some nights when the world quiets just enough for memory to slip through the cracks, i wonder. Not out of hope but out of something older than that. Something like longing, but gentler.
I wonder if she ever thinks about the past, about our moments. About those late nights when everything felt like it could last forever. The way she felt when she sent me those song. The way i listened to it like it was a confession wrapped in melody. I wonder if she remembers how i told her i placed her in my heart and threw the keys into the sea.
not for poetry.
not for drama.
But because i meant it, i still do. And maybe she does remember. or maybe sheâs forgotten it all, the song, the promise, the boy who loved her quietly and never quite learned how to express his feelings, too afraid and went missing, not once but many times. I guess iâll never know. And maybe thatâs the price of loving someone without asking for anything in return.
But if she ever stumbles across these words - if by some strange grace she finds this quiet corner of the internet where i still keep her name folded between the lines â i hope she knows:
i never stopped cherishing that moment.
i never tried to unmake that promise.
I donât think you know how often I still find you, in the spaces between things. In the pause before I answer a question. In the way I dream within a dream.
Thereâs a place I havenât returned to. Not because I canât but because I already know whatâs waiting. The silence that used to feel like peace but now just sounds like your absence. Youâre not in my life anymore. But youâre in the way I flinch when someone says your name. In the way I avoid certain streets. In the way I still check the back of crowded rooms, just in case.
Iâve rewritten our ending a thousand times. Sometimes you stay. Sometimes I ask you to. But in every version, thereâs a moment where we look at each other and know weâre already gone. And even now, after all these years, I still carry youâ not as a wound, but as a whisper folded into the quietest part of me, a place no one else has ever reached, and no one ever will.
âRewind the first time, time forgot to move.â
It was between the bonfire and the dark. The flames danced, but she was still. Not trying to be seenâjust being and somehow that was enough to undo me. I didnât know her name. Didnât know the weight of her laughter or the way her silence could feel like a song. But in that moment, I knew something ancient had shifted.
There are moments that donât just passâthey etch. And that night carved itself into me like a quiet vow I never got to speak. I wish I could go back. Not to change anything. Just to stand there again, as the fire cracked and the world softened and she looked like the reason the stars had waited so long to shine.
That was the first time I saw her.
And every version of me since, has been trying to return to that night.
