The Weight of What Isn’t

They said grief was loud. Mine came in whispers— soft as moths chewing through my ribcage one memory at a time. There are rooms I can’t enter. Not because the doors are locked— but because your ghost sits there, drinking my silence. I carry you in the ache behind my smile, in the second spoonful of coffee I don’t pour anymore. I still sleep on one side of the bed. The other stays cold out of respect. People ask how I’m doing and I become fluent in lies. “I’m okay,” I say, while my hands script elegies into the folds of my jeans. I wish I could mourn you loudly, like the sky does with thunder. But instead I break in small, polite catastrophes. The worst part? You didn’t even die. You just left. And somehow, that feels more violent.