Where This Ends

If I don’t disappear — really disappear,
like a stone thrown into the sea,
then maybe I’ll haunt the house instead.
Not the whole house, no — just
the space between everyone gossiping
and my ma's nightly sniff
when she thinks no one hears.

Maybe I’ll linger
in the glow of the television
when reruns of Jeopardy! echo
and no one answers the questions out loud.
I’ll mouth the words — wrong, always —
just to feel human again.

I think about the body sometimes,
how it keeps going
even when you tell it to stop —
a dog that doesn’t know
its owner died years ago
Or heartbeat like an unpaid bill;
persistent, rude,
and never your choice.

Sometimes I wonder if God
is just another tired man
in a dirty apron,
burnt out from making too many
souls that never wanted to live.
Maybe He dropped mine
and just left it on the floor —
a crack, a little dent —
but who has time to fix
every broken thing that still breathes?

If He’s listening —
not that I’d blame Him if He’s not —
I’d ask,
“was this supposed to mean something,
or was I the noise between meanings?”

If I stay, maybe I’ll plant a lemon tree.
Let the sour outgrow the sadness.
Let it bear fruit, small and bitter,
but real — something
to prove I was here.
Maybe I’ll squeeze it into water,
pretend it’s holy,
pretend it’s enough.

But what if it dies too?
What if I forget to water it,
the way I forget to eat,
the way I forget I matter
until someone mentions my name
in the past tense?

There’s a part of me —
and I hate to admit this —
that still wants to see
what happens next.
Call it cowardice or hope,
or just muscle memory,
but I keep waking up.

If I disappear — really go this time —
they’ll probably find my floorbed first.
Unwashed transparent mug,
half-charged phone
still buzzing from some group chat
I stopped replying two weeks ago.

My mother will climb up, upstairs
like she’s scared of the silence.
She’ll ascend the stairs slowly,
as if I might still say “yeah?”
from somewhere she can’t see.
And then the air — that awful,
thick, knowing air — will settle.

She’ll notice the walls cracked open,
the curtain breathing in and out,
and think I’ve gone for a walk.
She’ll call my name once,
twice,
then stop.
There’s a point when even calling
feels useless.

Maybe my sister will come later,
Open up my laptop,
read a few lines
she’ll never admit it made her cry.
Maybe she’ll keep it,
Printed a page somewhere in the middle —
the one that says,
“I swear I tried.”

And that’ll be it.
The room will stay.
The air will learn to move again.
Someone else will plant a lemon tree,
and it’ll live,
because I won’t be here to forget it.