“The Ache That Stays”
when you're missing someone so much it breaks you...
Why does it ache so much?
I woke with your name on my tongue,
a phantom syllable I couldn’t swallow.
It burned like fire in my throat,
and whispered like ghosts in hollow rooms.
You’re everywhere I look, but never seen you,
a shadow in the window, I keep hoping it’s you,
a song that won’t stop hurting,
a dream that forgets to end when I wake.
I reach for you in the dark
like I used to,
like muscle memory,
like prayer.
But the bed is just cotton and sighs,
And silence is louder when it is used to hold your voice.
I miss you in ways
Those poems try and fail to hold.
I miss you
In coffee cups and calendar squares,
in streetlights,
In the shape of sunsets.
I miss you in moments so small,
No one would ever see the wreckage,
But I do.
Oh, I do.
I carry this ache like a sacred curse.
I name it Love.
I name it Loss.
I name it You.
Tell me, how do I live in a world
where your laughter is no longer real?
Where your absence has a sharper presence
than most living things?
They say time heals.
But what if I don’t want healing?
What if I just want you?
Flawed, tired, human,
impossible,
mine?
Some nights, I pretend you’re still beside me.
I speak out loud,
to no one.
And yet,
My heart waits for your answer,
as if it still believes in miracles.
I keep your memory like a weapon,
a blade I press to my chest
to feel something again.
Did you know
that people can live with broken hearts?
They don’t die,
not really.
They just learn to walk
With the weight of missing
dragging behind them like chains
They won’t unshackle.
I write you poems instead of letters,
because poems can bleed.
Because I don’t want your ghost to think I’ve forgotten,
No, I remember everything.
The way you smiled sideways.
The words you never said, but I still understood.
The way you made the world feel less cruel,
even if just for a little while.
I don’t know what happens next.
I don’t know how long grief plans to stay.
But I do know this,
If love is a wound,
then let mine stay open.
If missing you is a sin,
then I’ll burn gladly.
Because you were worth the ache.
You are worth this ache.
And until my bones forget how to feel,
I will miss you,
fiercely,
brutally,
tenderly,
forever.
JacobM