The Ones

Some leave like smoke—

vanishing mid-sentence,

their footprints barely bruising the ground.

Others linger—

in the scent of old rain,

in the pause between thoughts,

in the songs that hum through the walls

when everything else goes still.

I used to keep count—

of goodbyes,

of glances that dropped like stones into silence,

of names I no longer say out loud.

But there’s a moment, always,

when absence hums louder than presence,

when the ache grows legs and walks beside you,

uninvited but strangely familiar—

a ghost with your old sweater,

your old laugh.

And then—

the turn.

It doesn’t come with fanfare,

just a slow unraveling of why.

A soft shift in the sky,

like it’s learning to forgive

the clouds for leaving.

You realize:

some people were never meant to stay,

but not all departures are wreckage.

Not all broken things

fail to hold light.

There is a kind of beauty

in what remains—

a memory that doesn’t ask to be perfect,

a scar that doesn’t try to vanish,

a heart that mends crooked

but keeps beating anyway.