There was a time when the days had edges—
clear beginnings, honest endings,
your voice somewhere in between,
steady as a hand on my shoulder
that I never thought to thank.
Now everything bleeds.
Morning arrives like an apology
no one speaks aloud.
I sit with it,
watching the light crawl across the floor
as if it’s searching for something it lost,
as if it remembers better than I do.
Even the sunlight feels secondhand now—
like it’s been somewhere warmer,
somewhere still full of voices,
before it found its way here
to this quiet that hums too loudly.
You used to fill the quiet
without trying.
Not with words—
but with the certainty
that nothing important would disappear
while I wasn’t looking.
I must have looked away.
Or maybe it was time
that blinked first—
closing its eyes just long enough
to take everything with it.
They left in pieces, you know.
Not all at once.
First the laughter—
it thinned out, stretched too far
until it snapped into silence.
Then the calls stopped coming.
Then the names started sounding unfamiliar
in my own mouth.
Then came the forgetting—
slow, merciful, and cruel.
The way faces blur at the edges,
the way voices lose their weight,
until all that remains
is the knowledge that something mattered
more than I can now prove.
I kept expecting footsteps,
a door opening,
some small, ordinary return—
but time does not return things.
It only teaches you
how to stand where they used to be.
How to breathe
in rooms that feel abandoned
even while you occupy them.
I walk through rooms
that feel like they’re remembering me wrong.
Everything is where it should be,
and still—
nothing is.
The walls hold their silence
like a secret they’ve agreed not to share.
Even echoes refuse to stay.
Even absence has begun to thin,
as if one day
there will be nothing left
to prove any of this ever happened.
Some nights I swear
I hear you in the next room,
just beyond the reach of waking.
Not speaking—
just being there,
like gravity.
Like something I depended on
without knowing it had a name.
I hold my breath
so I don’t scare it away—
that almost-presence,
that fragile illusion
that maybe loss is reversible
if I am quiet enough.
But morning always comes
and takes it back.
I don’t cry the way I thought I would.
It’s quieter than that.
More like a slow leak—
something essential leaving me
one unnoticed moment at a time.
A forgetting of how to feel fully,
as if grief has worn down the edges
of every other emotion
until joy itself arrives muted,
as though it’s afraid
of overstaying.
And the world—
it keeps moving.
Of course it does.
Cars pass.
People laugh.
Someone somewhere is beginning something
they’ll believe will last forever.
I watch them sometimes—
those people still untouched
by this kind of silence.
I want to warn them,
but there’s no language for it
that they would understand
before it’s too late.
So I say nothing.
I’ve begun to measure life
in what’s missing.
In empty chairs.
In numbers I no longer dial.
In the unbearable distance
between who I was
and whoever keeps waking up in my place.
I’ve started losing things
that aren’t even gone—
misplacing whole afternoons,
forgetting why I walked into rooms,
as if my mind is practicing
for a future
where even you will feel imagined.
And that is what terrifies me most—
not that you’re gone,
but that one day
it won’t feel like you were ever here.
If there is a place where you still exist,
I hope it is kind.
I hope it holds you gently,
the way I never learned to hold anything
without fearing its end.
I hope you are not aware
of how quietly everything unraveled here,
how absence spread
like a shadow with no source,
until it touched everything I knew.
As for me—
I am still here,
watching the days slip past
like water through open hands,
trying to remember
what it felt like
to think I could hold on.
Apr 2
Apr 2, 2026 at 11:24 AM UTC
There was a time when the days had edges—
clear beginnings, honest endings,
your voice somewhere in between,
steady as a hand on my shoulder
that I never thought to thank.
Now everything bleeds.
Morning arrives like an apology
no one speaks aloud.
I sit with it,
watching the light crawl across the floor
as if it’s searching for something it lost,
as if it remembers better than I do.
Even the sunlight feels secondhand now—
like it’s been somewhere warmer,
somewhere still full of voices,
before it found its way here
to this quiet that hums too loudly.
You used to fill the quiet
without trying.
Not with words—
but with the certainty
that nothing important would disappear
while I wasn’t looking.
I must have looked away.
Or maybe it was time
that blinked first—
closing its eyes just long enough
to take everything with it.
They left in pieces, you know.
Not all at once.
First the laughter—
it thinned out, stretched too far
until it snapped into silence.
Then the calls stopped coming.
Then the names started sounding unfamiliar
in my own mouth.
Then came the forgetting—
slow, merciful, and cruel.
The way faces blur at the edges,
the way voices lose their weight,
until all that remains
is the knowledge that something mattered
more than I can now prove.
I kept expecting footsteps,
a door opening,
some small, ordinary return—
but time does not return things.
It only teaches you
how to stand where they used to be.
How to breathe
in rooms that feel abandoned
even while you occupy them.
I walk through rooms
that feel like they’re remembering me wrong.
Everything is where it should be,
and still—
nothing is.
The walls hold their silence
like a secret they’ve agreed not to share.
Even echoes refuse to stay.
Even absence has begun to thin,
as if one day
there will be nothing left
to prove any of this ever happened.
Some nights I swear
I hear you in the next room,
just beyond the reach of waking.
Not speaking—
just being there,
like gravity.
Like something I depended on
without knowing it had a name.
I hold my breath
so I don’t scare it away—
that almost-presence,
that fragile illusion
that maybe loss is reversible
if I am quiet enough.
But morning always comes
and takes it back.
I don’t cry the way I thought I would.
It’s quieter than that.
More like a slow leak—
something essential leaving me
one unnoticed moment at a time.
A forgetting of how to feel fully,
as if grief has worn down the edges
of every other emotion
until joy itself arrives muted,
as though it’s afraid
of overstaying.
And the world—
it keeps moving.
Of course it does.
Cars pass.
People laugh.
Someone somewhere is beginning something
they’ll believe will last forever.
I watch them sometimes—
those people still untouched
by this kind of silence.
I want to warn them,
but there’s no language for it
that they would understand
before it’s too late.
So I say nothing.
I’ve begun to measure life
in what’s missing.
In empty chairs.
In numbers I no longer dial.
In the unbearable distance
between who I was
and whoever keeps waking up in my place.
I’ve started losing things
that aren’t even gone—
misplacing whole afternoons,
forgetting why I walked into rooms,
as if my mind is practicing
for a future
where even you will feel imagined.
And that is what terrifies me most—
not that you’re gone,
but that one day
it won’t feel like you were ever here.
If there is a place where you still exist,
I hope it is kind.
I hope it holds you gently,
the way I never learned to hold anything
without fearing its end.
I hope you are not aware
of how quietly everything unraveled here,
how absence spread
like a shadow with no source,
until it touched everything I knew.
As for me—
I am still here,
watching the days slip past
like water through open hands,
trying to remember
what it felt like
to think I could hold on.
I miss my dad and my friends.