What Lives in the Silence

A Poem for My Mother

I never told you how the sky looked

when I got the call.

I was in a different time,

a different land,

and the world went quiet

in a way that no words could reach.

I didn’t hear your last breath.

Did it catch like mine does now?

When I remember your laugh,

does it echo anywhere but me?

You left while I was chasing life

too far from your arms.

The miles turned into regret,

and regret into silence

so loud it keeps me up

long after midnight forgets the stars.

You were more than mother.

You were my morning prayers,

my late-night tea,

my “don’t worry, I’ll wait up,”

my forever place to land.

And I wasn't there.

Not to hold your hand,

not to brush your hair,

not to whisper,

"You can go, I’ll be okay."

I wasn’t okay.

I’m still not.

People say time heals.

They say she’s in a better place.

They say write it down, talk it out,

keep her alive in memory.

But no one told me how to come home

to a house that no longer smells like you,

to a kitchen that doesn’t hum with your songs,

to silence where your footsteps used to be.

You live now

in half-finished sentences

and recipes I try to remember.

In the old scarf still hanging by the door.

In the soft way I speak to my own child

without even meaning to.

You live in dreams

that wake me weeping.

I say I’m fine

but my pillow knows the truth.

I never told you

how your advice still rings

when life bruises me.

How I still reach for my phone

when something good happens

because I want you to know,

even now.

The world kept spinning.

I went back to work.

People stopped asking.

They think grief is something you survive.

But I carry it like another heartbeat—

invisible, but always there.

You were not a chapter.

You were the book.

The hands that turned my every page.

The eyes that saw me

even when I was lost.

You were not perfect.

You were real,

and that made you everything.

I miss you.

Not just your voice,

but your silence,

the way it comforted

without needing a word.

I miss the things I never got to say,

and the ones you’ll never get to hear.

If love could build a bridge,

I’d run barefoot across the sky.

If grief could be undone,

I’d trade every mile I ever traveled

to sit beside you

just one more time.

But instead, I whisper into the silence,

hoping it carries

my confessions,

my quiet rage,

my shattered dreams,

and my deepest fear,

that I was too late.