Too Close, Yet So Far : Like December and January
you prove it to me that i am never worth to be risk for.
you prove it to me that i am hopeless romantic.
you. prove. it. to. me. everything.
You were always there—so close I could feel the shift in the air when you moved, so close your words felt like they brushed against me, soft and fleeting, like the edge of a dream. But between us was a distance I could never cross, something I couldn’t name. We were like December and January. Neighbors. Side by side. Yet never truly meeting.
You were my January. You carried a kind of brightness, a spark that lit up everything around you. You were the fresh start everyone else looked forward to—the beginning of something better. But that light? That warmth? It never reached me. I was stuck in December, weighed down by endings and the kind of silence that echoes for days. I watched you looking ahead, your gaze fixed on something far away, somewhere I couldn’t follow. And all I could do was stand there, waiting, hoping, breaking.
December’s heavy, you know? It’s not just about the cold or the way the days feel like they’re collapsing in on themselves. It’s the weight of everything unfinished. The words I didn’t say. The moments I didn’t take. You were right there, close enough that I could almost touch you, and yet you were already slipping away, moving toward tomorrows that didn’t have room for me.
“Am I not worth enough for you to take the risk?” I wanted to ask, though the words always caught in my throat. I kept waiting for you to see it, to feel it—for the moment you’d take a step closer instead of a step away. But it never came.
Loving you was like trying to hold snow in my hands. No matter how carefully I tried to keep it, it melted. Slipped through my fingers. It vanished before I could make sense of it.
- Unrequited love is a lot like that—soft and quiet on the surface but sharp and freezing when it settles in your chest. It doesn’t scream or demand attention. It just sits there, waiting for you to notice how much it hurts.
But you didn’t notice. Or maybe you chose not to. And still, I stayed in those small moments where you were near, convincing myself they meant something, even when I knew they didn’t. Every glance you didn’t return, every word you didn’t say—it all piled up, heavy and suffocating, but I clung to it anyway. Sometimes I’d catch myself wondering if you even saw me standing there, frozen in place, hoping you’d turn around. Did you ever feel it? The way I lingered, the way I clung to the edges of our time together like it might somehow be enough? Or was I just December to you—something fleeting, something to move past, forgotten the moment January arrived?
At night, when the world went quiet, I let myself imagine things differently. I’d think about a universe where December and January could touch, where the space between us would close, where you’d finally see me—not as a shadow, not as a passing moment, but as something real.
“In the end, we only regret the chances we didn’t take,” I wanted to tell you. “I’ll be your safety net, so why not raise the stakes?” I could hear your heart from across the room, pulsing through my veins. I knew you felt it too. You couldn’t hide it, not from me. Lie to me all you please, but I could see right through it. Through you.
Oh, why couldn’t we, for once, just say what we want? Say what we feel? Why couldn’t you, for once, disregard the world and run toward what you knew was real? I’d have caught you. I’d have been your shelter, your steady ground.
“Take a chance with me,” I whispered into the silence of all our unsaid words. But the space between us only grew wider.
You moved forward. Of course, you did. January always does. It leaves December behind, taking its place without looking back. And I stayed, caught in the cold, in the weight of everything I felt but couldn’t give to you. Too close, yet so far. Always near, but never close enough. You were my beginning, and I was your end. And nothing hurts more than knowing I was just a chapter you were always meant to leave behind.
