You sat at your desk,
your spine a bare trellis
beneath a cotton sky.
I watered it
with the rain of my tears,
warmed it
with the sunlight of my eyes,
hoping that one day
courage would climb it
like a vine,
self-belief would leaf along it,
and flowers would bloom
from every vertebra—
until you stood,
no longer merely possessing a spine,
but blooming one.
At night
it is not your body
that I miss the most.
The years have taught me
that hunger can be endured,
that longing settles eventually
like dust upon forgotten books.
No,
it is the space beside me
that aches.
The place where I would fold myself
into the certainty of your arms
and lay down the burdens
I carried through the day.
Who will listen now
to my small fears
that seem foolish in daylight?
Who will hear me worry
over imagined slights,
over children grown distant,
over wrinkles and ailments
and the thousand little doubts
that visit a woman
when the world grows quiet?
You never laughed.
You would draw me closer,
your hand tracing circles
upon my back,
and somehow
every storm inside me
would lose its thunder.
The nights are the hardest.
The moon spills silver
through the curtains,
but its light no longer soothes.
It enters me
like saline pushed
through a clogged cannula—
meant to heal,
yet burning its slow path
through tender flesh,
each drop carrying
the sting of remembrance.
The darkness still arrives
at the appointed hour,
but there is no one
to gather my scattered thoughts
and hold them gently
until sleep comes.
So I lie awake,
speaking to the silence
as though it were you.
And the moonlight keeps flowing,
cold and merciless,
through veins narrowed by grief,
until every memory of your kindness,
every word you once spoke
to quiet my fears,
returns with that same sharp ache.
And sometimes,
when the silver burning softens,
I almost believe
that if I turn quickly enough,
I will find you there—
waiting,
as you always did,
to listen
all night long.
