The shops are loud with red,
plastic hearts and hollow sentiment,
love packaged, priced, and sold.

I walk past it all,
a man with a heart too full and too empty,
too much longing, too little place to put it.

Somewhere, you sit—
maybe glancing at a card he gave you,
maybe not.
Not  thinking of me
but why should you

The weight of your absence
presses against my ribs,
an ache that has no name,
only a date on the calendar
that taunts me.

I kiss your photograph  when no one sees,
write you into poems you will never read,
carry you like a secret,
like a wound.

And when the night comes,
and the world quiets,
I will whisper your name into the dark,
just to hear it,
just to keep it alive
for one more day.