The house remembers how you moved.
Light still falls the way it used to.
Your name lives in ordinary days,
Like a song I almost play.

I reach for things that aren’t here now,
Still leave the light on, anyhow
Grief arrives without a sound,
Takes a chair and settles down.

Crowded rooms — I’m standing still,
Learning how to disappear.
Everyone has somewhere to be,
And I am learning how to be here.

Loneliness isn’t sharp or loud.
It sits beside me, calm and proud.
Not asking much, not passing through —
Just waiting quietly with you.

Stay, sadness.
Stay awhile.

Come and go.
Bend, don’t break.
I can carry the ache.

I loved you in the quiet ways —
In future tense, in better days.
Now time moves in a different key,
In rooms that do not answer me.

Stay, sadness.
Stay awhile.

Come and go.
Bend, don’t break.
I can carry the ache.