The Morning After

The morning after

nothing, yet somehow everything, has changed.

You sit at the edge of the bed,

staring,

wondering,

How do you even function now?

What are you supposed to do?

Maybe you’ll step outside,

feel the air on your skin,

maybe you’ll bake something sweet,

fill the rooms with warmth and sugar

but you don’t.

Instead, you sit in the silence,

eyes fixed on one spot

that spot

over there.

Do you see it?

The stain shaped like a face.

A face.

Maybe it will speak to you,

maybe it will say something kind,

but it doesn’t.

Your phone rests heavy in your hand.

No new messages.

No missed calls.

Just the glow of a screen

that will not save you.

The hours crawl,

shadows shifting across the floor,

stretching, shrinking,

stretching again.

You do not move with them.

The walls are too close,

yet the world outside feels too far.

Even your breath sounds foreign,

as though it belongs to someone else.

You tell yourself you’ll try again tomorrow,

that you’ll rise,

step out,

become someone who belongs here.

But tomorrow feels like a country

you cannot reach.

So you stay.

On the edge of the bed.

In the silence.

Eyes locked on that stain,

searching for a voice

that will not come.