Where the Light Doesn’t Reach

I sat in your room today.

Dust danced in a beam of sun,

But you weren’t there to scold it

Like you used to—

“Always open the window,” you’d say,

“Let the air carry the sadness out.”

I opened the window,

But the sadness stayed.

The pillow still carries your shape.

The corner of the bedsheet still folds the way you left it.

Your book is open to a page

I’m too afraid to read.

It might be the last thought you had,

And I don’t want to know if it was unfinished.

They say people leave signs.

I’ve looked.

In the hall mirror.

In the creak of the third stair.

In the black coffee I now drink

Just because you used to.

But I see no signs.

I just see absence—

And absence doesn't speak.

Once, you told me

You were scared of being forgotten.

But I remember

Even the way you used to peel oranges—

Carefully, so the skin came off in one perfect spiral.

You are not forgotten.

You are the ghost that wakes before I do.

You are the breath caught in my chest

When a song reminds me of you.

You are the silent “good night”

I whisper into the dark.

The world hasn’t changed.

But it feels dimmer now.

Like it’s missing a bulb

That only you knew how to replace.

Your favorite mug is still on the shelf.

No one dares touch it.

Not because we want to preserve it,

But because we don’t know how to be okay

After using something that once touched your lips.

Grief is not always crying.

Sometimes it's

Forgetting what laughter sounded like.

Sometimes it’s

Pausing at the door,

Expecting you to be on the other side

Fixing the curtain,

Humming an old movie tune

Off-key and full of joy.

I write letters to you.

Not to send—

But to feel like you're still reading them

Somewhere beyond this ache.

Somewhere that understands

Why I still set your place at the table.

Why I still avoid the color of your last shirt.

Why I haven’t changed your phone’s wallpaper.

The world tells me,

"Time heals."

But they don’t say how long.

They don’t say

That healing isn’t smooth—

It’s jagged.

And sometimes,

You bleed just from remembering a voice.

You didn’t say goodbye.

Not in words.

But I heard it

In the quietness of your last hug.

In the way your hand held on

Like it was memorizing me.

I think you knew.

That your days were softening.

That your light was dimming.

That the world was preparing

To go on without you.

But I wasn’t ready.

I still had so many stories to tell you.

So many sunsets to share.

So many apologies I hadn’t learned how to say.

Now I say them

To the shadows in your room.

To the place where the light doesn’t reach.

To the empty air

That holds your memory

Better than I ever could.

You left with silence on your tongue,

While I stayed, holding every unsaid song.

I breathe, I speak, I laugh—I try.

But I’m still learning how to say goodbye.

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