The messages stopped one evening without warning. No goodnight, no excuses, just silence. And in that silence, I found chaos.

For weeks, our conversations were like a safe haven for me—raw, honest, and unfiltered, even if they were mostly about her. She never revealed her name, dodging my playful attempts to guess it. “Why does it matter?” she’d ask with a casual shrug I could almost hear through the phone.

It started innocently enough. A random comment on a post. Her reply was sharp but intriguing, laced with a hint of something deeper. It pulled me in. The texts became longer, more frequent, and somehow more personal—at least for me. Her world was a mystery, a puzzle I didn’t even know I wanted to solve.

And now, the silence echoed louder than her words ever did.

When I reached out, desperate to break the void, her reply was like a dagger:

"What’s the point of knowing? You’re a stranger.”

A stranger.

She was right, wasn’t she? She never told me her real name. I had no claim on her, no right to feel the way I did. But the truth was, I did feel. Too much, perhaps.

Why did I care for someone who kept me at arm’s length? Why did I miss her voice in the text bubbles that no longer appeared?

There was a warmth to her words that seemed to touch places in my heart I didn’t know were cold. And now, with her gone, I was left holding the weight of unspoken words—things I couldn’t say to her, wouldn’t dare to say even if I had the chance.

I wanted to tell her that her laugh, even typed out as “haha,” felt like sunlight on my gray days. That her sharp, guarded replies felt like walls I wanted to climb, not because I needed to know her secrets, but because I wanted her to know it was safe to share them with me.

But she chose to stay hidden, and I chose to care for someone I could never hold.

So, here I am, staring at a screen that no longer lights up with her messages, carrying a heart full of feelings that I have no place to put. Maybe someday, she’ll think of me and wonder why I disappeared, but I doubt it.

After all, to her, I was just a stranger.

In the silence, I was a name you never knew.

A stranger in your messages, fading like a shadow.

I thought I mattered, thought we had a connection.

Now, I’m just an echo in the distance—

a memory you’ve let slip away.

Why do I still miss you, still wonder?

Maybe because I hoped you’d see me more.

Maybe because I cared more than you ever did.

But in the end, I’m just a ghost of a story—

unwritten, unspoken, and forgotten.

Yet I'm still here.

At twenty-one, the world feels vast,

Dreams in my pocket, but time moves fast.

I stand at the edge, unsure, afraid,

A path unpaved, yet debts to be paid.

By twenty-two, the nights grow cold,

Chasing a future, but losing my hold.

A lover departs, her words like a knife,

“Be a man,” she says, “and fix your life.”

At twenty-three, I bury my pride,

The boy I once knew has already died.

Friends fade away, success is their creed,

And I am left planting a garden of need.

By twenty-four, the mirror stares back,

A face full of questions, confidence cracks.

The weight of the world presses my chest,

Yet I smile to pretend I’m doing my best.

At twenty-five, the storm still roars,

But something inside begins to soar.

Through ashes and tears, I carve my way,

A broken man, but alive today.

I am the man who stands in the shade,

Where love was once given, but slowly it fades.

A silent cry that no one hears,

A man alone, lost in his fears.

And I wonder:

How long can a man live, when he’s never seen,

When all that he is, is just what might have been?

I am the weight that drags me down,

The drowning man who cannot drown.

A prisoner to thoughts I cannot flee,

Locked in a mind that won’t set me free.