THE HOLLOW AFTER YOU

 

The Hollow After You 

__________________ 

Everyone’s gone now,

The front door slams shut, a final thud,

Bolted tight, the lock clicking into place—

A barricade against the world’s prying eyes.

Finally, I can breathe,

A ragged gasp tearing through the silence,

The air sharp and cold in my lungs,

No witnesses to choke it back down.

This facade I’ve held,

A mask of stability stretched too thin,

Feels like a bad poker face—

Bluffing with trembling hands,

Aces slipping from my grip.

Yet they all buy it,

Nodding at the lie I wear,

The steady smile plastered over cracks,

While inside, I’m a house of cards,

Teetering, one breath from collapse.  

Nothing’s new in this ache,

This gnawing void of missing you—

I sprawl across the bed,

A wasteland of tangled sheets,

Twisted like storm wreckage,

Your absence a weight pressing me flat.

The ashtray sits heavy in my hands,

Cigarette butts piled like fallen soldiers,

Gray ash smudging my fingers—

I clutch it like I’m less-than,

A hollow shell diminished by your ghost,

And it’s true, isn’t it?

Without you, I’m a fraction,

Less than the sum of two plus two,

A broken equation scrawled in the dark,

Divided too many times—

Head splintered with restless thoughts,

Heart cleaved by a dull, relentless blade,

Body slumped, a stranger to itself.  

The room echoes with your leaving,

Walls staring back, blank and accusing,

The air thick with the stale scent of smoke,

A fog I can’t wave away.

I trace the dents you left—

The pillow still cradling your shape,

The coffee mug with your lipstick’s faint kiss,

A relic I can’t bring myself to wash.

Missing you is a tide I can’t outrun,

Waves crashing over me at dawn,

Drowning the will to face the day.

Sometimes, yes, I question the point—

Why rise, why breathe, why pretend,

When the marrow of me has drained away,

Siphoned off with your footsteps down the hall?  

How can I smile,

When she’s gone—you’re gone—

And with you, the tether to who I was?

The mirror shows a stranger’s face,

Eyes sunken, lips a flat line,

A reflection I don’t know how to meet.

I’m erased in your absence,

A shadow smudged into the carpet,

Fading with each tick of the clock.

The sun claws through the blinds,

Its light a cruel spotlight on my ruin,

And I shrink from it,

Curling tighter into the bed’s embrace,

The sheets a shroud for what’s left of me.

There’s no stitching this back together—

No glue for a soul split threefold,

No spark to reignite what’s burned to ash.  

I’ve been divided beyond repair,

A puzzle with pieces lost to the wind,

Scattered across the months you’ve been gone.

The front door stays locked,

A fortress for one,

But it traps me with this truth:

I’m not just missing you—

I’m missing me,

The me that lived in your laughter,

That thrived in the warmth of your gaze.

Now, I’m a ghost haunting my own life,

Holding the ashtray like a lifeline,

Breathing only to count the hours,

Wondering if the point slipped out

The day you did,

Leaving me here,

Less than nothing,