For You, Always

I carry a piece of you within me.
Not as grief,
but as something living—
something that breathes
when I am still.

I feel you,
even though you are no longer here among us.
The world calls this absence.
My senses refuse that word.

Your memory is etched within me,
soft yet permanent—
returning me to days
that arrived carrying joy without effort,
love without fear,
laughter without rehearsal,
peace without explanation.

That smile—
that unmistakable laughter—
still reaches me like music,
though now it plays
only in the quiet
of my remembering.

We lived those days fully.
As humans.
Learning and unlearning together.
Growing through love and madness,
through closeness and chosen solitude.
Those moments are not past.
They remain alive in me,
untouched by time.

My senses cannot accept that you are gone,
because my mind keeps finding you—
in pauses,
in familiar light,
in the way silence
suddenly feels full.

I never knew
that a thousand days together
could hold such magic—
enough to last
a thousand years.

I still wish—
to have you beside me as my companion.
And in a way no distance can undo,
you are.
You always will be.

I long for you in the physical world,
even as I know that longing may be selfish.
You may now be at peace,
held in a joy beyond form,
beyond weight,
beyond need.

I feel you watching—
not guarding,
but guiding.
Helping me face what waits,
urging me to grow,
to rise,
to become strong enough
to meet you again
without fear,
without separation.

Still, my heart asks quietly—
what of our unfinished dreams?
The house on the hills.
Our dancing.
Our adventures.
Those slow evening walks
where nothing needed fixing.

Perhaps they are not lost.
Perhaps they are simply waiting—
patient, as love is—
for another life,
another beginning,
where time finally says
yes
to us again.

Written by Juilee Parag Parkhi