The Room Remembers

The room remembers what I try to forget,

The hush that follows a word unsaid.

The curtain still sways with the open pane,

Like it's waiting for you to walk in again.

The chair holds still where you used to sit,

Its silence deeper than words permit.

Your cup untouched, still stains the rim,

As if time paused, and waits for him.

Books still line the wooden shelf,

One open page — you marked yourself.

A coat that still holds folds of care,

Hangs near the door, like you’re still there.

I sweep, I dust, I wash the floor,

But some things won’t clean anymore.

The scent you wore clings to the air,

Like something lost but always there.

They say the heart forgets with time,

But mine keeps you in every line.

The clock still moves, but I do not,

I'm stitched to moments we both forgot.

The mirror shows just one face now,

But memory draws you in somehow.

Your laughter hides in hallway bends,

It rises soft, and sudden, then ends.

The seasons shift beyond these walls,

But here, the same cold evening falls.

Your shadow rests on the window frame,

Calling my heart by your old name.

I dress each morning, slow and numb,

The same routine, the same old hum.

I brush my hair, then stop midway—

You'd smile at how I looked each day.

The garden waits for hands that know,

How flowers bloom, and how to grow.

But soil now sleeps, untouched, unsaid,

No roses bloom since you’ve been dead.

I tried to write, I tried to paint,

But every color feels too faint.

Your absence dries the poet’s pen,

The canvas waits for you again.

Grief, it seems, is not a storm,

But something quiet, slow, and warm.

It does not scream, it does not fight,

It follows you from night to night.

Some days I speak — aloud, alone —

To ghosts that feel like flesh and bone.

Your answers come in shifting breeze,

Or creaking doors and bending trees.

No one believes the walls can hear,

But they hold everything you were near.

Each picture frame, each folded sheet,

Still echoes every time we’d meet.

You are the name I never say,

But whisper every single day.

A silent vow, a soft refrain,

A memory carved deep in pain.

I light a candle when dusk sets in,

To mark the place your smile had been.

Its glow is faint, but so am I—

Still learning how to say goodbye.

And though the world has moved ahead,

I walk the past with careful tread.

Avoiding cracks where we once laughed,

Preserving tears in paragraphs.

So many things you left behind—

Not objects, but the softer kind.

The half-told jokes, the middle song,

The way you’d pause when nights felt long.

I miss the silence that we shared,

When nothing spoken said we cared.

Now every silence that I hear,

Just proves that you are nowhere near.

I trace your name in breath and dust,

In morning’s chill and evening’s rust.

I try to sleep but dreams betray,

And bring your footsteps back to stay.

I wake, and all is still and bare,

But feel your weight still in the air.

I reach for light, for proof, for grace—

But only find your empty space.

I pass your shoes still by the door,

Unmoved for weeks or maybe more.

Each lace holds days we used to chase,

Each scuff a memory I can't erase.

They sit like anchors in the dust,

Not worn, not lost — just left in trust.

So if they ask, I will not cry —

But grief still burns behind the eye.

You may be gone, but not erased,

This house still holds the shape you placed.

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