There are love stories written in trembling hands,
inked in the quiver of first kisses,
sealed in the breathless hush of two souls colliding,
and I have read them all.

I have listened to the whispered nostalgia
of friends tracing their heartbreaks like constellations,
each one a wound they wear with pride—
because at least they got to bleed for something.
At least they got to hold love in their hands,
even if it crumbled like ash.

But where is the story for the ones who never got their first love?
The ones who sat in the audience,
watching the grand performance of devotion,
but never once felt the warmth of the stage lights?
Where is the song for the girl who has never been sung about?

I am that girl.
The one who was never the frantic “I can’t live without you.”
Never the name whispered in the dark to calm a racing heart.
Never the soft morning gaze of someone who sees the rest of their life in my eyes.

And it hurts.
God, it hurts.

To know that someone once ached for him,
that he has been loved in a way I never will be.
That he has a past where he was the sun,
while I am left wondering if I am even a flickering candle.

And I tell myself maybe love is coming.
Maybe one day, someone will look at me
the way poets describe—
with hunger, with reverence, with trembling hands reaching for something sacred.

But what if they don’t?
What if I am the space between heartbeats,
the silence between love songs,
the person who is always there but never the one?

What if I leave this world having never been
the reason someone couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep,
couldn’t breathe without saying my name?

What if I die and the world keeps turning,
unmoved by the absence of someone
who was never truly held?

And maybe that’s the part that breaks me the most.

Not just that I have never been adored,
but that I don’t know if I ever will be.