I Still Set a Place for You

It’s strange, isn’t it?

How someone can be gone, and yet never leave.

How an empty chair can still carry weight.

How silence can be louder than all the noise in the world.

I still set a place for you.

Not always literally—though some evenings I catch myself reaching for that second plate—but in the quiet corners of my mind, you’re always there. A familiar echo. A sigh left unfinished. A warmth I keep chasing in the chill of night.

When I think of you, the tears choke me.

It doesn’t matter how much time passes. The grief isn’t linear. It’s a storm that keeps returning. Sometimes it whispers, other times it drowns me. I close my eyes and still see your face, sharp and soft all at once. I still hear your laugh in the silence. I still remember how your skin smelled after rain.

They say memories fade.

I wish they would.

Because mine are alive.

And they hold me hostage.

You’re not here anymore. But you never left.

And I—God help me—I’m still yours. Still caught in the web of everything we were, and everything we never got to be.

Some nights I try to let go.

I reach for freedom like a drowning woman reaches for air. I try to sever the ropes of the past, the way you used to untangle my necklaces when they knotted in my drawer. But I always end up right back where I started.

Missing you.

Still trying to forget that I loved you more than I ever planned to.

Still trying to silence the sting of every scar you left behind.

Still trying to survive in this life where my days blur and my nights echo with your absence.

Still trying to convince myself that it’s possible to forget someone you’d burn the world for.

I lie to myself.

I pretend I’ve moved on.

I go to work, I smile at strangers, I laugh when appropriate.

But inside, I’m still having conversations with the ghost of you.

Still craving one more moment. One more word. One more chance to touch your face and pretend the world isn’t cruel.

People say, “You’ll love again.”

As if love is something you can rinse off and wear anew.

But they don’t know.

They don’t know what it’s like to build a whole world around someone

and then have to walk through the ashes barefoot.

They don’t know what it’s like to see your future vanish in a single heartbeat.

They don’t know how many times I’ve fallen asleep hoping that tomorrow will hurt less

only to wake and find the ache sitting on my chest like it never left.

I don’t need grand things.

Just the ordinary, beautiful nothings.

The warmth of your hand on my back.

The sound of you humming in the morning.

The way you'd kiss my forehead when I overthought everything.

Those were the things that made life feel bearable. Full. Home.

Now all I have are memories—and even they are starting to betray me.

Was your voice deeper or softer?

Did your laugh have that little break in it, or am I imagining it now?

Were your eyes more grey than blue?

It terrifies me that I don’t know anymore.

That I’m losing you piece by piece.

I still set a place for you.

In the way I hesitate before making two cups of coffee.

In the way I choose movies you'd have liked, then turn them off.

In the way I write letters I never send, as if you might still read them in some corner of the universe.

Maybe this is what love becomes when it has nowhere to go—

a quiet ache wrapped in routine.

A ghost that doesn’t haunt you with fear,

but with longing.

I should have moved on by now.

Everyone says so.

But the pain is stronger than their timelines.

And the truth is, I don’t want to forget.

Because forgetting you would mean erasing the best parts of me.

The version of me who knew how to love that deeply, that fearlessly.

So I carry you.

In every smile I fake.

In every breath I take through the pain.

In every quiet night when the world sleeps, and I’m still awake,

talking to the stars,

as if they could pass the message along.

I miss you.

And until I don’t—

I’ll still set a place for you.