Why do we keep replaying what’s already over? That song comes on, and suddenly he’s back, not in my life, not in front of me, but in every laugh we shared, every silence that still stings, every corner of me I thought I’d left behind. We tell ourselves we’re over it, but the music doesn’t care, and neither do we.
Music has always followed me. It walks with me when the streets are empty. It waits beside me when the world is too loud. It sits heavy on the parts of me I thought I had buried. Sometimes it is comforting. Sometimes it burns. Sometimes it opens doors I wish I could lock forever.
That song played again. The one that only existed when he did. I didn’t skip it, I let it play. Every note a memory, every word a ghost, every beat a reminder that some things never really leave. It’s strange that the song remembers us better than I ever could.
What if he had stayed? What if he had spoken? Would we still laugh until our stomachs hurt? Would we still talk about everything and nothing? Would love have lasted, or would it have broken anyway? I don’t know.
Isn’t it strange how people change, but in that song, he’s still the same? And I’m still the same too, only older and carrying fragments of what we were, like a photograph fading but refusing to disappear.
Maybe that’s what songs are for; to hold the moments we lost. You can delete the pictures, you can move on, you can tell yourself you’re fine, but the second that melody hits, everything comes back. The joy. The pain. The love that refuses to leave.
We all have that one song. The one that ruins us a little. The one we play even when it hurts. The one that reminds us that some people stay in our heart and mind, even when they leave our life.
Maybe we lose people to know what’s real, maybe that’s the lesson. Maybe it’s supposed to teach us how fragile love is, or maybe it’s teaching us how strong we can be. But I still wish love didn’t have to burn this much.
So I let the song play, even when it rips me apart, even when it leaves nothing but him behind, even when the silence that follows feels heavier than anything else. And I let it play, because even when it hurts, it still feels like I’m beside him.
It’s all that’s left.
