There are losses that don’t arrive with a crash.
They don’t break windows.
They don’t shake the walls.
They come in slowly instead,
as if they know they have time,
and by the time you notice
everything inside you has already changed forever.
That morning felt normal.
Just another morning,
the kind that never warns you
that something is about to break inside you.
I remember broken voices.
I remember the house moving too fast.
I remember the heavy air,
as if even the walls understood.
And I didn’t understand anything.
Because I was just a child.
A child who believed
older sisters don’t leave,
that they always stay,
that they always come back.
But that morning
everyone was crying.
And no one knew how to explain to me
that you weren’t coming back.
“She’s gone.”
“We’re sorry.”
“She’s not suffering anymore.”
Big words
for a small heart
that only knew how to love you.
And I heard them…
but I didn’t understand.
Because your room was still there.
Your things were still there.
Your scent was still there.
Everything was still the same.
Except you.
And that was the only truth.
Days passed.
And the world learned to move on.
The flowers disappeared.
The visits too.
The silence stayed.
But my world didn’t move on with you.
Because every night
I kept waiting for your footsteps
in the room next door.
Every night I thought
it had to be a mistake.
That you would walk in laughing.
That you would say my name again.
But silence always came first.
And one night I went into your room.
Soft light came through the window.
Dust floated slowly in the air.
And everything looked like it was waiting for you,
without knowing you would never return.
I saw a photo.
Both of us laughing.
Both of us alive.
Both of us believing
that time was endless.
And then something broke inside me.
Not suddenly.
Not loudly.
But slowly.
Like a crack you can’t see
that changes everything anyway.
And I understood.
I would grow up without you.
I would live without you.
The world would keep going without you.
And you would not be there for any of it.
Not in my birthdays.
Not in my fears.
Not in my silences.
Not in my victories.
And it hurt.
It hurt in a way that has no name.
And I cried.
I cried holding onto your memory.
I cried until I couldn’t breathe properly.
I cried until there was nothing left.
Because I understood something bigger than absence:
that missing you
would last forever.
And even now…
when everything is quiet…
I am still that child.
The one who waits.
The one who listens.
The one who looks toward the door.
The one who still believes, deep down,
that at any moment
you will walk back in
and everything will be the same again