I'm chasing your shadow《短文・詩》

Through dusk-drenched avenues,
I scour the blur of faces,
each one a flicker, a maybe—
searching for the echo of you.

Unbidden, you arrive—
not in flesh, but in thought,
like a chord I once heard
humming low in the marrow of silence.

I stitch together your shape
from threads of memory—
the tilt of a smile,
the hush of your departure,
the shadow you left behind.

I trace it still.
Perhaps I have always been
chasing not you,
but your shadow—
the silhouette cast
by the brilliance before you.

To touch even that—
to brush the hem of your absence—
is a kind of grace.

But truth be told,
I ache for your substance.
I ache to touch you.

For now,
I will dwell in your dusk.
Not yet. Not today.
But—someday,
may I?

I will not wait.
I will not beg.
It need not be me.
But still—
choose me.