The Space Between Us

By Khwaish Aggarwal

It started with nothing.  

A glance that wasn’t meant for me,  

a voice carried by the wind,  

a presence that settled in the hollow of my chest  

before I even knew it was there.  

I never spoke his name aloud.  

Never let it touch the air,  

as if keeping it inside me  

would make it mine in some quiet, secret way.  

Instead, I watched.  

Not in the way that hopes—  

but in the way that mourns.  

Behind a curtain too thin to hide me,  

too heavy to let me step through.  

He never knew.  

Why would he?  

To him, I was nothing more than air,  

a breath of silence between conversations,  

a space left untouched and unmissed.  

But to me, he was the moment the world stood still,  

the light on an ordinary afternoon,  

the reason I pressed my forehead to cold glass  

just for the chance to see him pass by.  

I told myself it would fade.  

That I would stop waiting,  

stop searching,  

stop feeling—  

But the truth is, I never learned how.  

And he never knew there was someone,  

just beyond the window,  

holding onto him in the only way she could.  

By letting him go. 

By Khwaish Aggarwal