The Man Who Almost Lived Here

He started returning on Thursdays.

Not dramatically, of course!

No thunder, no mirrors cracking,

No cinematic violation of physics.

Just small... edits.

A second toothbrush,

Wet.

A receipt in my coat

For coffee I don’t drink...

Oat milk, cinnamon,

Two sugars.

I take mine black...

At first, I blamed the soft decay of memory.

The way days blur...

Like wet ink.

But then I found the photo.

It was me.

Same face, same tired left eye,

Same scar near the chin...

But he was smiling.

Like he knew something had worked out.

Behind him: a coastline I’ve never seen.

A woman with a hand on his shoulder

Like she belonged there...

On the back, in my handwriting:

“We made it.”

He comes back more often now.

Not fully.

Not yet.

Just overlapping.

I wake up with sand in my bed.

Salt on my lips.

A song in my head, I don’t recognize...

But somehow miss.

Yesterday, I said a name out loud.

And someone answered...

From the other room.

I live alone.

No one was there.

I think he’s trying to live here.

Or maybe...

This is worse...

Maybe I’m the one...

Fading into his version.

Because things are shifting.

My walls are lighter.

My books are fewer.

My regrets… rearranged.

I remember choices,

I didn’t make,

As if I had.

Turning left instead of right.

Calling back.

Staying.

Tonight, I found him in the mirror.

Not a reflection.

A delay.

He stood there a second longer than me.

Breathing differently.

Calm.

“Don’t fight it,” he said,

With my voice.

But steadier.

“You wanted this.”

I don’t remember wanting this.

But I do remember,

Wanting something else.

Something better.

Something softer.

A life where things

Didn’t fracture so easily.

It’s Thursday again.

There are two shadows in my room now.

One writes this.

The other...

He’s already signed his name...

At the bottom...

- Reunited, we'll be one, once again.