There is a room in the back of your mind
where the wallpaper is peeling in long, beige strips,
and the air smells like the cedar chest of a woman
who has been gone for twenty years.
You don’t go there often; the floorboards groan
under the weight of everything you promised to remember
but let slip through your fingers like dry sand.
Do you remember the way your father’s hands looked?
Not the way they looked at the end—thin and paper-pale—
but when they were vast enough to hold the whole world,
rough-calloused and smelling of woodsmoke and salt.
You thought those hands were a permanent geography,
a map that would always lead you home.
But maps tear. The ink fades in the rain.
And one day, you look at your own hands in the light
and see his knuckles, his veins, his ticking clock
starting to pulse beneath your own skin.
We spend our youth trying to outrun our shadows,
slamming doors on the people who only wanted to love us
until their voices became a background hum,
like a refrigerator in a kitchen we no longer visit.
We trade "I love you" for "I’m busy,"
and "Tell me that story again" for "I’ve heard this before."
We think time is a river we can swim in forever,
not realizing it is a waterfall we are all leaning over.
And then comes the morning when the phone doesn't ring.
The silence in the house is a physical weight,
a coat that is three sizes too big and twice as heavy.
You sit in the chair where they used to sit,
and you finally understand that the greatest tragedy
isn't that we die—it’s that we stay.
We stay to fold the laundry they’ll never wear again.
We stay to find the half-finished grocery list in a drawer:
Milk. Bread. Eggs. Apples.
A mundane poem of a life that was still expecting a Tuesday.
You would give every dollar, every achievement,
every breath you have left just to hear that one voice
say your name incorrectly, or complain about the draft,
or tell you that the soup needs more salt.
But the air is empty.
The echo is the only thing that answers.
And you realize, with a sob that breaks your ribs,
that you are now the one holding the map,
standing in the dark,
waiting for someone who is never coming home.
Mar 3
Mar 3, 2026 at 8:31 PM UTC
There is a room in the back of your mind
where the wallpaper is peeling in long, beige strips,
and the air smells like the cedar chest of a woman
who has been gone for twenty years.
You don’t go there often; the floorboards groan
under the weight of everything you promised to remember
but let slip through your fingers like dry sand.
Do you remember the way your father’s hands looked?
Not the way they looked at the end—thin and paper-pale—
but when they were vast enough to hold the whole world,
rough-calloused and smelling of woodsmoke and salt.
You thought those hands were a permanent geography,
a map that would always lead you home.
But maps tear. The ink fades in the rain.
And one day, you look at your own hands in the light
and see his knuckles, his veins, his ticking clock
starting to pulse beneath your own skin.
We spend our youth trying to outrun our shadows,
slamming doors on the people who only wanted to love us
until their voices became a background hum,
like a refrigerator in a kitchen we no longer visit.
We trade "I love you" for "I’m busy,"
and "Tell me that story again" for "I’ve heard this before."
We think time is a river we can swim in forever,
not realizing it is a waterfall we are all leaning over.
And then comes the morning when the phone doesn't ring.
The silence in the house is a physical weight,
a coat that is three sizes too big and twice as heavy.
You sit in the chair where they used to sit,
and you finally understand that the greatest tragedy
isn't that we die—it’s that we stay.
We stay to fold the laundry they’ll never wear again.
We stay to find the half-finished grocery list in a drawer:
Milk. Bread. Eggs. Apples.
A mundane poem of a life that was still expecting a Tuesday.
You would give every dollar, every achievement,
every breath you have left just to hear that one voice
say your name incorrectly, or complain about the draft,
or tell you that the soup needs more salt.
But the air is empty.
The echo is the only thing that answers.
And you realize, with a sob that breaks your ribs,
that you are now the one holding the map,
standing in the dark,
waiting for someone who is never coming home.
