The Future We Never Lived Poem by Boaja Darlong

I never looked at you
the way people admire the moon from afar.
I looked at you
like a man looks at the place he hopes to call home.

Every smile you gave me
became another reason to believe
that forever wasn't just a word—
it was something we were quietly building together.

I had already imagined it all.

Your hand in mine
on roads we had never walked.
A little house filled with laughter.
Arguments that ended with apologies.
Dreams we would chase side by side.
Growing old while the world grew older around us.

I never realized
that the future I was living in my mind
could disappear in a single moment.

Then one day,

the conversations became quieter,
the distance became louder,
and the person I thought I'd never lose
slowly became someone I could only remember.

The hardest part isn't that you're gone.

It's knowing that some of the pain you carried
was because of me.

If I could rewrite one chapter of my life,
I wouldn't change the day we met.

I'd change the days
when I failed to understand your heart,
when my mistakes spoke louder than my love,
and when I made you feel
less cherished than you truly were.

People say love fades.

Maybe theirs does.

Mine simply learned
how to live with silence.

So if you ever wonder
whether someone still carries your name
like a prayer whispered to the stars—

it's me.

Not because I couldn't find another love,

but because a part of me
still lives in the future
I once dreamed of with you.

And if this is where our story ends,

then let this be the last thing
my heart ever asks you to know:

I never stopped loving you.

I only wish
I had loved you better.