The Coffee I Sip Without You

In a city of fog and summerless light, London hums softly, but nothing feels right. Years have withered, your name still flows Mithila, a whisper the morning wind knows. We never danced in moonlit embrace, Nor traced our fingers across time or space. But the dots were sent… three soft ellipses… Spoke louder than touches or lover’s kisses. I heard you, without words, without sound, Waves of canal cry where our hearts drowned. You were my poem, unwritten but known, My dream-shaped silence, my marrow, my bone. You left as sudden as autumn leaves fall, No reason, no echo, no curtain call. And still I sit at this quiet Departure café, Sipping my coffee as the ghosts replay. Each afternoon, each cup, each silent stir A ritual mourning the loss of her. The seat across me is empty, yet warm, Filled with a memory that breaks the norm. We had no nights of candlelit rain, No shared breath under windowpane. But you were the soul of all I believed, A love not touched, but deeply grieved. Years don’t erase, they only delay, The longing I carry, day by day. I wait in the steam of my porcelain cup, Still hoping one day you might look up. So I wave my feelings into the air, Like a flag for a ship no longer there. Departure lingers where your shadow lay… And I, still waiting, still love you today.