We never had a beginning. No first kiss, no photograph, no claim carved into the world. Yet I carry you like shrapnel, lodged too deep to pull out. How do you break me without ever holding me? How do you leave scars when you never touched the skin? You were a storm that never rained— but I drowned anyway. Every street I walk, your shadow follows. Every word I hear, your name is hidden beneath it, like a knife beneath silk. And still, we were nothing. Not lovers. Not even a fleeting chapter. Just a ghost, and I fed it until it grew teeth. I want to hate the idea of us— but how do you hate a dream? I want to forget that idea of us— but how do you bury a ghost that was never alive? They say time heals, but time has only sharpened you, made the absence heavier, made the silence louder. We never dated. We never even began. But tell me, why does it feel like I’m grieving a death?