GRIEF Poem: Moon Lit Gaze, by Kareena Almeida

I remember when you used to look at me
As if I were the moon,
Hanging in your sky,
Soft and luminous, pulling the tides in your chest.
There was something in your eyes
A quiet worship, a longing,
Like I was both faraway and yet yours to hold.
In those moments,
I believed I was made of light,
Reflecting something beautiful back to you.

But maybe I’m just delusional.
Maybe I read too much into the way
Your eyes lingered a little too long,
The way your breath seemed to catch
When the distance between us thinned.
Maybe it was never the moon you saw in me,
Only a fleeting shadow,
A pale echo of something you wanted to find
But never truly did.

I try to tell myself that I imagined it,
That I painted you in the colors of my own dreams,
But still,
There’s a part of me that holds on
Clings to the way your gaze once softened,
As if you saw something celestial in me,
Something rare and worth orbiting.

I don’t want my heart to ache for you,
To tremble in the hollow spaces
Where your light used to reach me.
I tell myself it’s easier to forget,
To close the door on those memories
Before they grow too heavy
And sink me like stones.

But how can I stop the ache
When the nights are so quiet,
When the moon still rises,
And I remember the way you once looked at me
Like I was its reflection?
The truth is,
I don’t want to ache,
But I do.
I ache in the silence you left behind,
In the empty places where your gaze used to rest,
And I can’t help but wonder
If you ever look up at the moon
And think of me
Or if I was just another phase you outgrew.