A QUIET PLACE YOU LEFT IN ME”

…stay on the line

just breathe

I like hearing you exist

⸻

I keep your voice in a glass by my bed

Shake it gently when it goes dead

It echoes softer every night

So I press it closer just to feel it bite

The room remembers where you stood

I haven’t moved it like I should

Your shadow lingers in the frame

Like it forgot it’s not your name

I don’t open curtains anymore

Light feels like an open door

And I don’t trust what might come through

If it realizes I lost you

⸻

There’s something breathing in the walls

It learned your rhythm, learned your calls

It hums your name when I go still

Like it knows I never will

⸻

Don’t leave me alone with me tonight

The silence sharpens into knives

It carves out shapes behind my eyes

That look like you—but wrong this time

Say you love me—soft and slow

So the dark won’t start to grow

I don’t need it to be true

I just need it to sound like you

⸻

I trace your outline in the dust

Where you once leaned, where we once touched

If I redraw you carefully

You almost look back at me

There’s a version of you in my head

It never leaves, it never rests

It speaks in ways you never would

But says the things I think you could

I feed it thoughts you didn’t say

It smiles wider every day

And when I ask it if you’re mine

…it says “for now”—every time

⸻

I think it’s learning how to be you

Filling gaps with things it wants to

Sometimes I hear it in your tone

Answer questions through your phone

If you go quiet, it gets loud

Wears your skin, but not quite right

And I’m too tired to tell apart

What’s you… and what stayed behind

⸻

Don’t hang up

Not yet

It’s closer when you disconnect

⸻

Don’t leave me alone with me tonight

I lose the edges of what’s right

Your voice splits into something new

One of them isn’t you

Say you love me—keep it steady

Before it says it first instead

And if you hear me say it back…

make sure it’s me inside my head