i lingered
They moved on.
Together.
Too fast.
Too easy.
My best friend.
My boyfriend.
Their laughter
still warm
even from my absence.
As if they had been waiting
for this moment all along.
I watched.
Quiet at first.
Patient.
Learning their routines.
The smile once saved for me
given to her instead.
His voice softer now,
saying her name
the way he used to say mine.
I’m gone.
Reduced to a memory they avoid,
a subject they skip,
a name that never passes their lips.
They don’t say my name anymore.
Not out loud.
Not ever.
And when the silence grows heavy,
they lie.
“She would want us to be happy.”
“She wouldn’t want us stuck with grief.”
“She would understand.”
They say it slowly.
Carefully.
As if the words can soften
what they did.
I want to scream.
Say my name.
Say it.
I rattle the walls,
the lights,
the mirrors,
begging the air to remember
what they’re trying so hard to forget.
I touched the doors.
I followed them home.
Every shadow whispered my name.
At night,
They lay across the bed
where I once laid.
I wonder how it feels now
to sleep in my place,
to breathe where I breathed,
to pretend I was never there.
They wake sweating.
They say it again.
“She would want us happy.”
Guilt settles in anyway.
Heavy.
Sticky.
It clings to their skin.
Days pass.
They thin.
Hollow.
Eyes sink deeper
each morning.
Food tastes wrong.
Sleep feels dangerous.
Every reflection, every corner
looks like me.
I whisper memories.
Promises they broke.
The words they never said.
I laugh louder now.
They argue.
Accuse.
Cry without knowing why.
Love rots fast
when it grows from betrayal.
I press closer.
Sit beside them.
Watch their hands shake
when my name slips out
by accident.
They stop looking alive.
Stop looking human.
Just guilt
wrapped in skin.
When they finally fall silent,
I wait.
Smiling.
Then they are here.
No excuses now.
No lies.
They stand beside me.
Eyes empty.
Voices gone.
I laugh.
Loud this time.
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