Collector of Humans

I think some people move through the world

like tourists.

They pass through.

Wave.

Take pictures.

Leave.

But I have always been

a collector.

Not of things.

Of humans.

I collect the way someone laughs

when they finally forget to be careful.

The exact cadence of a voice

at 11:42 p.m. when exhaustion loosens honesty from the ribs.

I collect favorite songs.

Coffee orders.

Trauma responses.

The stories people tell twice because they need someone to hold them long enough

to become real.

I remember the dog that died in third grade.

The ex they pretend not to miss.

The scar on their knee.

The way they go quiet right before they are about to disappear emotionally.

I carry people.

Not casually.

Not halfway.

Entirely.

And maybe that is beautiful.

But God,

it is also devastating.

Because collectors do not know how to lose things gently.

When something happens

when someone leaves or drifts

or slowly turns their face away from you

it does not feel like a simple ending.

It feels like a house fire.

Like someone reached inside your chest

and took shelves with them.

Because they were never just “a person.”

They became attached

to songs,

cities,

foods,

parks,

versions of yourself.

A whole ecosystem rearranges itself

around one absence.

That is the unbearable part.

Not rejection.

Not even distance.

It is the haunting.

Because collectors keep everything.

The texts.

The energy.

The almosts.

The way their eyes looked the night you realized you loved them differently.

People think memory lives in the brain.

Mine lives in the body.

In nervous systems.

In muscle.

In smell.

In the ache that appears

when I drive past a place that once held laughter.

I wish I knew how to love lightly.

I wish I knew how to let people become temporary.

But when I love someone,

I archive them.

Carefully.

Sacredly.

Like I already know

one day

I may have to survive the loss of them.
5/27/2026