The Sound of You, Unspoken

You left quietly.

No slammed doors, no final words sharp enough to wound—

just silence, and the soft way your absence rearranged the air.

I thought I would forget.

That time would smooth over your name,

that new places and unfamiliar streets would scrub away

the instinct to look for you in passing crowds.

But somehow,

you still visit.

Not often.

Only in the small pauses—

in the clink of a spoon against a bowl,

in the backseat of a cab with the windows half-down,

in the two-second silence between songs on a playlist

I never meant to keep.

You never haunt like a ghost.

No.

You arrive like a memory that forgot how to leave.

Like a question I never answered,

a letter I never sent,

a version of me that never got to say goodbye.

I no longer say your name out loud.

But in quiet rooms,

it still curls inside my chest

like a paper folded too many times—

creased, soft, and impossible to throw away.

And maybe that's what loneliness really is.

Not the absence of people,

but the presence of someone

who isn't here anymore

and somehow still is.

May 30, 2025