Sometimes

I like to think you’re frozen in time rather than gone.

Sometimes,
I like to think you’re frozen in time
rather than gone.

Not aging,
not moving forward,
not slipping into the kind of future
I have to live in without you.

Sometimes,
I pretend I’m frozen too.
Held in place by memory,
by a house that still knows our footsteps,
by walls that once listened to us breathe.

I imagine we’re still there,
on that old couch
that sank in the middle
where we used to sit too close
and not close enough at the same time.

The lights are dim.
That soft yellow that only shows up after 2 a.m.,
when the world forgets itself
and everything feels briefly honest.

In that dream,
nothing has changed.
No one has left.
Time is kind.
Time is paused.

It is easier that way.
To believe we are suspended
like dust in a quiet room
that no one has opened a window in.

Until I realize
I cannot get back to that room.
That the couch is somewhere else now.
That the light has burned out.
That the house learned how to forget us.

I am still here,
walking forward with the weight of a past
that refuses to follow me properly.

And you,
you are not frozen.
You are not waiting.
You are not sitting under yellow light at 2 a.m.

You are gone,
And I am the only one
still pretending time is gentle.

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Next time, when the night gets too quiet, you’ll know where to find me—where the stars lean in, the porch light flickers, and the smoke keeps our secrets. - Cigarette talk