Moments We Never Shared

A free verse poem

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I never saw you on the MET doorsteps
waiting under the city’s glow for
a museum night, out of all the things
I would’ve done with you.

I never dined again in that dimly lit resto
in Brooklyn — vegetarian,
I believe it was, where moments were
more fleeting than the candle-light
that blew off mid-meal.

I never bumped into you on campus,
where unspoken words fell
like autumn leaves, another reason
of not meeting so often:

We go to different places,
diverging into paths
leading away from each other.
I was afraid we did so
and will continue to.

I never told you that
your presence was a quiet storm
in my life, that I couldn’t look into your eyes
without losing myself, drowning in
the deep thoughts of what could be
and could have been.

But then again, I couldn’t find myself
without leaving you, without stepping back
into the world I have ahead,
where your absence echoes
in places we never were, in moments
we never shared.