Wesley Hill Poet Free verse

Inherited Silence

I wear your old sweater
not because it fits,
but because it remembers
what you chose to forget.

The threads hold their shape
better than our family ever did.

Your picture smiles from a frame,
frozen in a version of yourself
I searched for years to find.

I learned how to miss someone
who was still alive.

That's a special kind of loneliness,
setting a place at your table
inside my heart
and watching it gather dust.

I built a thousand fathers from memory,
patched them together
with birthday wishes,
half-finished apologies,
and every excuse I was given.

None of them stayed.

The house grew quiet.
The seasons changed.
I grew older than some of my memories.

Yet part of me still listens
for your footsteps in the hallway,
still hopes the next knock
might carry a different ending.

But grief is a stubborn tenant.

It pays its rent in echoes
and keeps your room
inside me forever.

So I fold the sweater carefully,
place it back in the drawer,
and carry what remains:

not your absence,

but my survival.

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