The Phantom Limb

Each night I call your name— and the floorboards creak their answer, settling into the weight of waiting. Your laughter breaks the silence like warm light spilling through my chest, where my ribs cage only echoes. In your gaze, dust motes pause mid-fall, suspended in the shaft of afternoon— then spiral again, small galaxies collapsing into light. You are the hand that steadies the trembling cup, the voice that whispers "breathe" when my chest forgets its rhythm. But even tenderness leaves its mark— love carved deep like frost on bark, and now your chair holds only the memory of your shape. I count the spaces between your fingerprints on the window— each one a crack where winter sighs, each one a wound the light cannot close. Your kiss still travels through my veins, a compass needle spinning wild, and I return to myself like a bird to a nest made of thorns. I find you in the steam of morning coffee, in the way my shadow bends toward yours on walls that remember our arguments— and in every fragile moment, your name rises like steam from tea left too long. You are the bruise that colors me with memory's dark purple— the phantom limb I flex in the middle of the night, still reaching for your warmth in dreams, waking with your name beneath my tongue.