Grief isn’t always loud.

Sometimes it sits beside you
like an old friend
who doesn’t need to talk
to be heard.

Sometimes,
grief is not about what happened.
It’s about what didn’t.

The goodbye you never said.
The hug you never got.
The feeling of walking into a room
and being known
without having to explain a thing.

You carry it
in the way you walk,
in the way your playlist has changed,
in the way you write poems
because there’s nowhere else
to put the ache.

But even this—
this quiet grief—
is a form of love.
A way of saying
“That life mattered.
That version of me still exists.
I remember.”

And remembering
is brave.