A love letter to the absences that still live in our dreams
I look for you, I write to you, and I dream of you. I do it with the naïve hope that somewhere in the universe, you still hear my voice. And I don’t understand why you don’t answer… What has happened within you that drifts you away from me, as if the wind had carried off the part of you that still remembered me? Your silence weighs more than distance itself.
We were always everything and nothing at once.
A fleeting encounter between two souls that never knew whether they were arriving or leaving—a parenthesis in time. Our moments were brief, and yet, they left marks.
Today, I miss your voice—the one that could break the silence without asking permission. That laughter that filled the air so naturally, as if it feared nothing of another’s soul. I miss your gaze, that way of looking at me as though you had already known me before, in another life, in another body.
In one of my darkest hours, you were there—without even knowing it.
Your embrace was my refuge, your presence, a balm.
That day, I fell in love with the calm you carried. I wanted to stay in that peace, to seek your eyes, to feel you near. But just as the sun sets without a farewell, my infatuation too faded away.
And yet, I still look for you.
I don’t know what force always pulls me toward you, nor what spell lives in your name that my soul whispers even in its sleep. Perhaps it’s a habit. Perhaps destiny. The truth is that, no matter how hard I try to let go, something in me insists on staying.
I know that the distance between us has always been an abyss and that your silences are no longer pauses but farewells. And still, the connection endures—like an invisible thread that neither time nor forgetfulness can sever.
I should be used to your silences, to your brief replies, to your way of leaving without closing the door, and to your quiet escapes without goodbye. But this time, I feel you differently, as if your soul had taken another path, as if your heart now lived in another place, another story… and that, as always, pulls you away from me.
And still, here I am—writing without expecting an answer, keeping these words as one keeps a secret, with the silent hope that one day, you’ll come looking for me again.
Even if only from memory.
—Nel Duarte
Calgary, AB. November 01, 2025, 4:35 am
👉 Also read: “In the Homeland of Dreams,” a poetic reflection about reunion, memory, and the impossible.