Some places don't change — the roads still curve the same, the walls still whisper when the wind passes through, and yet… something feels missing. Not visibly, but in the way silence now settles where laughter once lived. I returned after what felt like a lifetime, to a place where time once stood still for me. Familiar faces that once carried light in their eyes now look away like I was just passing fog.
There was a window — a small balcony really, where greetings used to bloom without reason. Not grand gestures, just simple moments — a glance, a smile, a 'hey' that meant more than a thousand words. But this time, the window stayed shut. Not because of fate or chance… but because it was meant to stay that way.
"The cruelest distance is not miles or time... it's the silence from someone who used to mean everything."
A child once eager to meet me simply disappeared into the house like he forgot the sound of my name. It's strange how even the purest hearts begin to mirror the silence they grow up around.
I sat in the quiet for hours. Not waiting — just… witnessing. Ten steps away from everything, and yet a thousand miles from everyone. The air wasn't colder, the sky wasn't darker — but the warmth I once found in that space had vanished without warning.
Sometimes, you don't lose people. You lose the version of them that once made space for you. And in return, you lose the version of yourself that believed they always would.
"Not all goodbyes are loud. Some are just slow disappearances wrapped in normal days."
It's not distance that ends stories — it's the quiet decision to stop turning the page.
But even unwritten chapters leave ink behind — on the fingertips, on the heart, in the places where silence now breathes louder than words.
I didn't knock. I didn't call. Some things are too delicate to chase, too sacred to beg for. I simply sat — as a guest to my own memories, watching the place I once belonged to forget me on purpose.
Maybe they didn't forget. Maybe they just learned how to live like I was never a part of the picture — cropping me out without ever tearing the photo.
There's a kind of farewell that doesn't need doors to shut or words to be said. It's just… presence ignored long enough until it becomes absence.
"They won't always slam the door. Sometimes, they'll just stop opening it."
And now I walk — not broken, not bitter… just quietly aware. Aware that not all ghosts wear white. Some simply stay behind, in streets they can no longer call home, watching from the shadows of who they used to be.
Because sometimes, the most painful goodbyes are the ones where no one says it — they just never come out to meet you.
And when you finally understand that your presence was noticed… and still ignored — that's when you stop waiting at closed doors. Not because you stopped caring, but because you realized…
you were never forgotten —
you were remembered,
and still left outside.