Traveler in a Suitcase!

Can you feel warm

when the cold learns your name?

This year,

the wind didn’t knock.

It came in like it lived here.

I was disappearing in plain sight

under warmth, under words, under routine,

and no one noticed.

I learned to dress for it,

layers on skin,

layers on thought.

Keep moving.

Keep polite.

Keep smiling

until it looks like you're healing.

They said spring comes next.

But winter didn’t get the memo.

It stayed.

Took the chair across from me

and asked if I’d noticed

how quiet the room became.

I said I was fine.

I said I was adjusting.

I said “pass the tea”

because words are safer than truth.

Some warmth is artificial.

Some prayers

are just noise

you tell the silence

to feel less alone.

Bring me more layers.

I’m still cold.

Even when it’s warm,

the wind remembers.

And if spring ever arrives...

really arrives...

I might not be here

to feel it.

Because this time,

I folded myself

so neatly

into the routine

that even I

can’t find the exit.

You walk beside me.

No footsteps.

No sound.

But I see your shape

in every choice I make.

Even when I run...

especially when I run,

you match my pace

like you’ve always known

where I’ll land.

I closed my eyes once,

and imagined the crows.

How they wait.

How they hunger.

But when I opened them,

you were still there.

Quiet.

Patient.

The most familiar view I’ve ever known.

They say fog eventually lifts.

That clarity returns.

But even when I can’t see you,

I know.

You don’t leave.

You don’t have to.

You live here now.

As long as this curse lingers,

let me feel your hand.

Even if it burns.

Even if it breaks me.

Let me know I’m still something

you reach for.

Even if no one else does.

-Ikkel Yoo-

There was a cake.

Lifted gently,

as if its sweetness could delay the truth.

Placed above the table untouched, divided,

agreed upon.

The candles stood like quiet warnings.

One flame per year, per memory,

per version of me I no longer recognize.

They burned politely,

counting down to reality.

The cream was soft.

Expected.

The chocolate: bitter enough to remind me

that sweetness is not the same as satisfaction.

Eat it with me,

and maybe it won’t feel so final.

It fell.

Of course it did.

They always do,

don’t they?

The stains came quick,

familiar.

Wipe it. Harder.

Pretend it was never served.

And now it’s gone.

All of it.

No crumbs. No story.

Just a silence in my stomach

that everyone calls “full.”

Let me sit here.

Let me say I’m okay.

Let me make this

look beautiful.

-Ikkel Y.-

It began with a secret,

and a lie that fit too well.

We never met,

but you stayed in the shape of my silence.

Always beside me.

Never within reach.

Fate didn’t want us.

It carved detours instead of answers.

And every path we walked

felt like an apology

without a mouth.

You rested in my arms

in the life I couldn’t name.

But I kept them soft,

so the chain would never hold.

So you'd know

you could leave.

And I wouldn’t ask you not to.

Let me be the one

who sees you cry

in the version of us

that never got written.

Let me wipe tears

you never shed,

for a love

we never spoke.

They made us strangers.

But strangers still ache.

Strangers still remember

what was almost true.

Why did we need to meet

if memory came without it?

It began with a secret.

And a lie.

We never met.

But I still carry you,

like a fact I never got to prove.

-Ikkel Y.-