It wasn't just a sound;
it was a map,
leading to a world
I thought we would build -
a world where her laugh
would echo down the corridors of our home.
spilling into the rooms
where children would learn
the magic of their mother's joy

Her laughter -
was color and warmth to the walls
of gray stone.

A pebble skipping over still waters,
shaking the silence
of my life before her.

But it's gone now,
its music quieted.
I still wait to hear it -
its rise, its ripple, its reverberation
the careless abandon
that made me believe
tomorrow could be beautiful.

I live now among echoes,
pieces of her joy caught between
corners
of old conversation.
I would give anything to hear it
again,
to let it anchor me

But laughter, like love,
cannot be held in place.
It flutters away
as quickly as it came
and I sit in its absence
holding onto the memory
of a giggle