Sumreen Younas Poet Free verse

HIS UNFINISHED WATER

He said *someone else*  
as lightly as if he were asking for water.  
The glass between them was almost full.

She had prepared herself for goodbye,  
not for the life he had already begun imagining without her.  
She watched his mouth make a life without her—

his shoes beside another door,  
his voice entering another morning,  
his hand becoming familiar in someone else’s hand.

A drop of water slid down his glass  
until the table took it.  
There are moments when the body becomes strangely polite  
to its own destruction.

Her hands stayed folded  
even when every nerve in them wanted his sleeve.  
When he stood, the chair dragged once against the floor—  
a brief, ugly sound, then silence.

Some names are spoken until  
there is nothing left to ask of them.

The door closed.  
The room kept its two chairs, one table,  
his unfinished water,  
the faint warmth where his hand had been.

By evening, the world still had its evidence—  
her footsteps, her shadow,  
the quiet pulse at her wrist.

She went home with everything the world could see,  
and without the one thing it could not.

♡Like1

Share Poem

---

Post Comments

Poetrysoup is an environment of encouragement and growth so only provide specific positive comments that indicate what you appreciate about the poem. Negative comments will result your account being banned.

Please Login to post a comment

Alison A Smith October 5, 2026 at 4:07 PM A beautifully restrained free-verse poem in which the ordinary detail of a nearly full glass becomes a powerful, recurring emblem of abandonment. The measured line breaks, spare physical gestures, and quiet domestic setting make the loss feel immediate and deeply human—especially the devastating contrast between everything the world can still see and the one absence it cannot.