I crossed an ocean, leaving behind the rooms that knew my laughter, the faces that shaped me, the love that once held me whole. Here, in this new land, I walk unfamiliar streets, gathering friends as lanterns against the dark. A girl leans toward me, her smile steady, her hand warm in mine. I let her closeness breathe through me, for I need the comfort of presence, the tenderness of touch, the reminder that love still finds me. But when the night thins into silence, the old ache returns. I hear her voice, the one I left, woven into the hush of memory. She inhabits the hidden chambers, her shadow leaning against my ribs. Even as I kiss another, it is her name that burns unspoken on my tongue. So I live divided, half in remembrance, half in becoming. I love here, yet I have not un-loved there. This is the weight I carry, not betrayal, but the impossibility of erasing what once claimed my heart in full. And in the quietest hours, I whisper it only to myself: that I am both faithful and faithless, both present and absent, both hers, and hers, never whole.