You Remember Me Whole

There is someone

who remembers me

before I learned

how carefully people introduce

themselves.

She remembers

the child who laughed

with missing buttons

and untidy dreams,

who believed every road

ended where happiness lived.

She remembers

the years I would rather fold

away –

when silence became

my safest language

and I mistook endurance

for strength.

It is a strange gift

to be known

by someone

who had watched you become

more than one person.

She does not ask

which version is real.

She gathers them all –

the hopeful one,

the frightened one,

the one who almost gave up,

the one still learning

that healing is not the same

as forgetting.

Some friendships

are not measured

by how often we speak.

They are measured

by the quiet certainty

that somewhere in the world,

there is a person

who can pronounce your name

the way your life remembers it.

And perhaps,

that is what it means

to belong to another soul.

Beside Me

When fear emptied the room,

you stayed.

Not with speeches

or promises

that tomorrow would be kinder.

You pulled a chair closer,

let silence breathe between us,

and waited

until I was ready

to speak.

The kettle whistled.

You poured tea into the chipped blue mug

I always reached for

without thinking.

Outside,

the afternoon carried on

with its ordinary business –

children chasing a ball,

a woman calling someone home,

a motorcycle disappearing at the end of the street.

Nothing remarkable happened.

Yet something shifted.

The air no longer felt

too heavy to lift.

I began to notice

small things again –

the window left open,

rain gathering

on the hibiscus leaves,

the stubborn sparrow

returning to the same branch.

Years from now,

people may speak

of resilience

as though it appeared

all at once.

They will not know

it first arrived

carrying your patience,

sitting across from me,

asking for nothing

except another cup of tea.

The poems explore friendships that hold people together when words are not enough.

Chidimma Ewelukwa is a Nigerian writer whose work explores memory, belonging, identity, and the quiet tensions of everyday life. She has been published in Writer Monk Literary Magazine and Polis magazine in Greece.