Waltzing syllables cast shadows from your closet
and slowly bruise your casual smiles.
“Can you still feel my breath
warm on your skin, the weight
of my head on your chest?”
Rebuild your walls in tribute.
Lock her away deep within.

You left here this morning with a carry-on
just to find three bags checked in your name.

Someday, your luggage will know continents,
leaving trails of letters lost,
love songs and photographs,
and the distant echoes of softening tears.
Will you have loved these places
like she did, my pining nestling?
Your feathers molt in the shadows of sorrowful beauty
but waxen wings only melt in the sun.

You drag your suitcases behind you
bogged down in the billows of dust.

Luggage tags with scattered dates crumble loneliness
into your sheets; your smiles come slower;
your tendons ache in their restless sleeps.
The years of compulsive movement,
the calloused fingers fumbling latches in the dark,
have left you chasing unexplainable ghosts.
Nuzzling voices draw close in your agony alone,
whispering from trail-beaten zippers barely
closed and barely clinging to overtired carpet bags.

You have carried her voice in your suitcase always
knowing her weight would seep into your bones.