I miss you in ways
language was never taught to hold.
In the pause before laughter,
in the chair that remembers your weight,
in the air that still expects your voice.
You meant the world to me
not the loud world,
but the quiet one
the kind made of steady hands,
slow smiles,
and a love that never asked to be proven.
Death took your body,
but it failed at taking you.
You remain in the way I breathe
when life becomes too much,
in the way I look for safety
and find only memory.
Some days I speak to you
without opening my mouth.
I tell you how tired I am,
how cruel time has been,
how growing up feels like betrayal
when you are not here to see it.
I would give anything
to hear my name again
the way only you said it
as if it mattered,
as if I was already enough.
Grief is not loud.
It is love with nowhere to go.
And mine still walks toward you,
every day,
even knowing
you now live only in heaven
and in me.