I Still Hear Your Laugh in Empty Rooms

It’s been months since you left,
but the walls haven’t caught up.

Sometimes it happens when I’m pouring coffee,
or folding clothes,
or walking past the couch where you once sat,
head thrown back,
eyes almost closed
from laughing too hard at something that probably wasn’t that funny.

It’s strange how sound lingers.
Not the way it does in a canyon or a subway tunnel,
but in the private corners of a house
where nobody else can hear it.

I’ve tried to fill the silence with music,
with podcasts,
with the hum of the fan.
But none of it drowns you out.

Your laugh lives in the creak of the floorboards,
in the click of the light switch,
in the space between my footsteps.

And maybe one day it will fade,
the way photographs yellow and memories soften at the edges.
But for now,
I don’t mind sharing the room.


---