we've got hopes on the horizon

“The trouble is if you don’t spend your life yourself, other people spend it for you.”

“One day she realized that she was the only one who could live her life. So she decided to stop worrying about what other people thought and start following her own path. She never looked back.”

You know I left a part of me in that city. With you. With all the memories I’ve made there. I remember the blinding intensity of the neon lights at night. The deafening noises of afternoon traffic. I’m convinced there’s still a whisper of my laughter at that coffee shop we used to go to. When they prepare your cup and ask you for your name, you have probably come close to saying mine a hundred times already. When you walk down the street, there has to be a shadow of my body dancing next to yours. An imprint of my fingers against your palm. The sound of my phantom footsteps that you can’t seem to shake. I bet you still hear the echo of a song I used to sing ringing through your empty apartment every now and then. Your sister always said it was too quiet anyway when I wasn’t around. I wonder if you like the quiet now. If you got used to it. If you found someone new to fill it.  I wonder if you ever come across a part of me, whether or not I left it behind willingly, and regret any of the things we did. Just a little. Just for a second. I wonder if you’d be sad if you met me and realised I tried so hard to get rid of the parts you left behind with me that I erased a little of myself in the process.

Sometimes when I look at you, I feel I’m gazing at a distant star. It’s dazzling, but the light is from tens of thousands of years ago. Maybe the star doesn’t even exist any more. Yet sometimes that light seems more real to me than anything.