The Shape You Left Behind

The clock keeps cutting hours into thinner slices

Each one tastes a little more like yesterday

Your coffee cup still sits exactly where you placed it

Brown ring on the table like a quiet accusation

I walk through rooms pretending they’re not missing parts

But every doorway feels a little narrower now

The air remembers how your laugh used to bend it

Now it just hangs heavy, waiting for permission to breathe

I keep reaching for the space

Where your shoulder used to be

Fingers closing on nothing

But still learning your shape by heart

This longing is a country with no borders

Stretches further the longer I stay inside

Every mile marker is your name in different handwriting

Every sunset ends with the same unanswered why

I’m not waiting for you to come back anymore

I’m just trying to survive

the beautiful violence

of still wanting you alive

I wear your old hoodie like stolen evidence

Sleeves too long, scent almost gone

But if I close my eyes tight enough

I can still feel the ghost of your arms inside the fabric

I talk to the dark like it might forward the message

Whisper things I was too proud to say out loud

The silence answers kinder than you ever did

At least it never tells me I’m asking for too much

This longing is a country with no borders

Stretches further the longer I stay inside

Every streetlight hums the songs you used to hate

Every raindrop asks where you’ve been hiding

I’m not waiting for forgiveness anymore

I’m just trying to make peace

with the beautiful violence

of still loving what left

Maybe one day this ache will soften into background noise

A low hum under other people’s laughter

But tonight it’s still the loudest thing in the room

Tonight it still knows your middle name

Tonight it still calls you home

in a voice that sounds exactly like mine

This longing is a house I keep returning to

Even though the lights are all switched off

I walk the empty hallways touching walls

Where your pictures used to hang

I’m not waiting for you anymore

I’m just learning how to live

inside the beautiful violence

of carrying what’s already gone