How could You not think of Me?

You claimed you barely recognized my face?

Well, the feeling is finally, fully mutual.

I sifted the ashes of this place

for some sign I haunted you,

for some small, lingering bruise.

I found the ghost of you, instead:

a stubborn ring from a coffee cup you left,

still staining my shelf.

The way I still automatically reach

for the light switch you broke,

my hand groping at empty, dark air.

That is the perfect metaphor you built

and never stuck around to fix.

I thought my absence would be a monument,

a grand, echoing hollow in your chest.

But you have filled the space so easily.

I know, because the silence from your direction

is not the sharp, clean cut of a loss—

it’s the dull, ambient hum of a machine

that has been powered down for years.

You are not pining.

You are just… living.

And the truest, bitterest proof is this:

the world did not end.

The mail still comes.

The sun still sets without commentary.

My name, I see now, was written in water

on a table you’d already cleared.