I hope that wherever you go you’ll remember me.

I know you’re going to travel the world, meet hundreds of new people and see things that will take your breath away but I hope that at the end of the day, when you rest your tired head on the pillow to sleep, you’ll remember me.

I hope that when you’re sitting at a cafe in Paris, you’ll remember our random coffee dates, how you always made fun of me because I put too much cream, how you would listen to me rant about my parents, my friends, and my exes, how you would shake your head because you can’t deal with another crazy story of me doing the one thing you told me not to do.

I hope you remember these little moments because when I look back on them, they’re not little at all. They mean so much more to me. They make me smile. They make me feel alive.

I hope that when you’re having a glass of wine at some fancy restaurant in Rome, you’ll remember the effect wine had on me. The secrets we spilled as we finished bottle after bottle. The stories we shared. The things we said and blamed it on the wine because we didn’t want to risk losing what we had. We didn’t want to lose our special friendship. We didn’t want to break each other’s hearts because we were already broken. I hope you remember me and realize that wine will never taste the same without me. I hope you realize that somehow we healed each other and it had nothing to do with wine.

I hope that when you’re soaking up the sun in Greece, you’ll remember my obsession with it, how I wanted to visit every island, how I wanted to take a picture in every corner, how I told you I wanted a proposal in Greece, a honeymoon in Greece or anything in Greece. I hope that when you’re by yourself there, you’ll miss me. I hope you realize that sometimes we need people we didn’t think we’d need and we miss people we didn’t think we’d miss. I hope you’ll remember me there because all I did in Greece was miss you and all I wanted was you by my side.

I hope that when you start working in London, you’ll remember me. When it gets too overwhelming, when you can’t catch a break, when you can’t even have a minute to yourself, I hope you remember that I always eased your anxiety. I calmed you down when you were stressed out. I took some of the heaviness away. I hope you remember that I’ll still do all that no matter where you are. I’ll always want to lift some of the heaviness away from you. I’ll always try to make you light again.

I just want you to know that I’ll always be here for you. Across different oceans, within different time zones, in cities I never even heard of, I’ll always be there for you. You’ll always have me.

And if this new life takes you away from me, then I hope that you can still let me in when I try to find my way back to you. I hope you don’t do the things all people who leave do. I hope you don’t ignore my texts or screen my calls. I hope you don’t get too ‘busy’ to talk to me when I need you. I hope you don’t push me away when I try to get close to you. I hope you don’t forget me. I hope you’ll always remember me and I hope we never truly have to say goodbye.

Rania Naim is a poet and author of the new book All The Words I Should Have Said, available here.