I Don’t Hate You, I Just Don’t Think About You

There was a time when your name was a wound,
raw and open, aching beneath my skin.
You were a shadow at my back,
a weight in my chest,
a storm that never passed.

But time has a way of unraveling ghosts.
And you?
You have unraveled into nothing.

I do not flinch when I hear your name.
It is just sound, empty and weightless,
like wind slipping through branches,
like a song I once knew
but forgot the words to.

I do not dream of you.
You do not linger in the corners of my thoughts,
do not haunt my mornings,
do not wait for me in the quiet hours of the night.

I do not replay the past.
The anger has faded, the hurt dissolved,
and in its place?
Nothing.
Not hatred. Not sorrow.
Not even regret.

You are not a scar.
You are not a lesson.
You are not a loss.

You are simply—gone.

I do not wonder how you are.
I do not trace the lines of your absence,
do not hold space for your memory,
do not search for meaning in the wreckage you left behind.

Because there is no wreckage.
Only a life that moved forward,
without you.

So no, I do not hate you.
Hate would require energy, attention, a place in my world.
And you?
You are nothing.
Not even worth the weight of a passing thought.