The Shape of Absence

A meditation on grief’s quiet persistence, where loss reshapes but never leaves.

I don’t cry the way I used to.
Now it is quieter,
a breath held too long,
a coffee cup left full.

There are no sirens.
Only the silence after,
when I remember
you are not here.

Grief doesn’t knock anymore.
It has a key,
lets itself in,
sits with me like an old friend
who doesn’t say much
but never leaves.

I trace the outlines
of everything left unsaid,
wonder if silence
was the loudest thing
you ever heard from me.

And I still look for you
in the place
where memory and wish
begin to blur.

But grief does not leave.
It only changes shape.
And I walk beside it,
not as an enemy,
but as the last doorway.

The last doorway
that still opens to you.