I still call you just to say
the most ordinary things—
a song I loved, a thought I had,
a funny sign on the side of the road.
Your voice still reaches me,
but through miles that stretch like oceans,
and it’s not the same as having you here.

I still go to the places we planned,
but your absence echoes louder
than any crowded room.
Even the puzzles sit unfinished,
pieces scattered like remnants
of a life that once made sense.

You were my safe place,
the steady ground beneath me,
and now I walk unsteady,
reaching for something
that isn’t there.

But soon—soon, you’ll be here.
And for a moment, I’ll breathe again,
watching your smile fill the spaces
that have ached for too long.
I’ll memorize your voice,
trace the feeling of belonging
before it slips away again.

And then, you’ll leave.
And I’ll know the weight of missing you
before it even begins.
Because this time, I understand
how deep absence cuts,
how cruel it is to taste love again
only to have it torn away.

I don’t know why life did this to me,
why I can’t just sit in your presence,
why I have to learn to live
with only shadows of what was.
But if I could freeze time,
I’d stop it the moment
you walk through that door—
before absence has the chance
to find me again.

"This is the compassion I'm willing to give!"

This is the compassion you're liable to get.

Silence. Stillness. Absence.

I drown myself in tasks,
pour coffee five times a day,
so even in those brief seconds,
my hands are not idle, my mind not still.

I raise the music to a scream,
to drown the voice that gnaws,
the voice that sounds like you.

I write and write and write,
so I do not reach for you,
so my fingers find ink instead of absence.

I do the things I do not wish to do,
fill the silence with motion,
but still
you slip into my sleep,
a ghost pressing its weight upon my chest.

When the earth is no longer a womb,
just a shriek and whistle of once uttered prayer—
a long,
puncturing howl of everything
that was once you
turned into casualties of silence,
then you know
that death has arrived,
noiselessly,
silent as a missile.

All the clamor outside-
it’s the hibakujumoku,
(the survivor trees)
insisting on life
within the blast radius
of your heart.

You left me — but your voice lingers still,
a quiet echo threading the hollow of my chest.
Each word, a ghost — soft as smoke,
yet heavy as stones I cannot lay down.

Tell me — does absence end a presence,
or do the shadows of love remain,
like paintings in an empty gallery,
etched into the silence of who we were?

In every corner of my mind,
your words move like uninvited guests,
rearranging memories,
leaving traces where you once filled every space.

If love is gone —
why does my heart still tune itself
to the phantom murmurs of your voice,
waiting, endlessly,
for a silence that heals?

I have witnessed unsolicited exposures
And revisited old faults without closure –
This painted ceiling, slowly stripping off its finishing
To bare its defects, begets nostalgia over

How your name is still a byword for frustration,
Shelved within my innermost synapses;
Like a dog-eared page in an Asian
**** magazine, sound & stiff as an equation.

The cup of tea
sat cold on the table,
I waited for her,
but the chair remained empty.