Dear Journal,

I think the ache has a shape now.
Not sharp, not sudden, but something that settles in the space between noticing
and reaching.

Because the day fills anyway.

It fills with small, vivid things,
a market humming like it always has,
fruit warm in my hands,
voices passing close enough to feel like belonging.
And all day I move through it
with this quiet instinct
to turn, to say,

you wouldn’t believe this.

But there is no turning.

There is no name that rises naturally,
no number I don’t have to think twice about,
no voice waiting on the other end
of something as simple as
hey, are you busy?

And it changes the way everything lands.

The sunset still opens wide,
color spilling over itself like it cannot be contained,
clouds holding their shape just long enough
to feel intentional.
And I stand there,
heart already mid sentence,

you should see this, it’s unreal

but the sentence has nowhere to go.
It just stays.
Inside me.

The flowers along the roadside,
small, unnoticed, still leaning into light
like they trust it will be there.
I wanted to tell you
they felt like something steady,
like quiet survival.

I wanted to say
they reminded me of you.

But there is no one to call
to say things like that anymore.

And it is not the big moments that undo me,
it is this.

A candle I found that turns into soil after it burns,
something meant to end
and then begin again.
I stood there longer than I should have,
thinking how badly I wanted to share that,
not because it is extraordinary,
but because it meant something
in a way I cannot quite carry alone.

The wind came through warm,
threaded with dirt,
like the earth was close,
like everything was trying to be felt,

and I had no one to say,
do you feel that too?

That is what this is.

Not just being alone,
but having a life that keeps unfolding
in ways that ask to be spoken aloud,
and no one to speak it to.

No one to call
just to say nothing important.
No one to interrupt with small details,
no one to laugh about something that did not matter
until it did.

Just this constant collecting,
moments stacking quietly inside me,
soft, beautiful,
and heavier every day.

I do not think I am asking for much.

Just a voice
that feels natural to reach for.

Just someone
who exists on the other end of the ordinary,
who would answer,
not because it is urgent,

but because it is me.

Until then,
everything I would have said
settles here instead,

a life full of things worth sharing,
learning how to live

with no one to call.