How We Became Past Tense 3

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“I can never give you what we had in August…”

– The afternoon of Monday, 9th February 2026

Loving you was like a house

That I did not choose to enter.
I just woke up one morning

And found myself sided with familiar walls,

With framed laughter I did not remember hanging,

And a door that was already locked.

There was no noise when it closed.

No slam.

Just a soft click.

I wanted to find the keys…

But all I found were old habits.

And receipts of your laughter,

And memories from days that used to matter,

Yet absolutely nothing shaped like escape.
I searched for the key in all the rooms,

As if it might be embarrassed

Hiding behind the couch,

Tucked beneath a memory we overused,

Or left carelessly on your tongue.
Every room remembered you differently.

The kitchen still smelt like our plans.

The bed in the bedroom still remembered our weight.

The bathroom mirror kept asking me

Why I looked like someone who was left all alone.

The windows were open,

but they only let things in;
light, doubt, time……

never letting anything out.

…..The windows were cruel.

They showed me everything as it is,

but never as we promised each other it would be.

I know I must have had the key once.

Doors don’t lock themselves without permission.

I must have trusted my heart too much,

Or must have believed I’d never need to leave this house.
Maybe I believed

that love like this

didn’t come with an exit.

Maybe I thought August was permanent.

Now every day, the house grows emptier of you.

As I sit on the floor and listen

to my heart knocking from the inside,

as if it’s also asking to be let out.
If you ask me where I left the key to this house,

I will tell you the truth:

I don’t remember ever losing it.

I only remember loving you

like a place I planned to live in forever.

#LeversWeNeverSent

Written by

Lus The Poet

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