The life you forgot

Draw the blinds; let the world forget—
its weather, its whispers, the pulse of the street.
Silence the kettle before it sings.
Let the water cool, untouched by steam.

Take the books from their shelves;
leave the spines bare.
Stories falter where the air feels thin.
Turn off the lamps; let the room unshape.
Even their hum is too slight to fill the space.

Fold the day into corners, sharp and clean.
Tuck it beneath the night’s worn hem.
No stars tonight, no distant call—
only the weighted pause
of what won’t be said.

It’s not the clocks,
or the clouds,
or the birds.
It’s the cup, unfilled on the counter,
the shoes still waiting by the door,
the hollow that stretches
to where you were.

Leave it to grow—this silence, this ache.
Quiet will come, but it won’t hold
the shape of your voice,
your breath,
or the life you forgot to leave behind.

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Completely unexpected, this poem fell out of my brain and into my fingers tonight. I gave it some time, and – while I usually don’t allow this, I refined it, rewrote it and it turned into this. So, if my writing was more polished, I could write something like this more often.