Missing From Me

In English, we say,

“I miss you.”

As though longing

were nothing more

than distance measured in words.

But in Spanish,

they say,

“Me haces falta.”

You are missing from me.

Not gone.

Not forgotten.

Missing.

Like a rib pulled from my chest

without leaving a scar.

Like a room in a house

that still has a doorway,

but no longer exists beyond it.

That is what you’ve become.

A shape my soul

still tries to fit itself around.

A silence with your voice carved into it.

A constellation with one star stolen,

leaving the night forever lopsided.

People tell me

that time will fill the emptiness.

They are mistaken.

Time does not replace

what was made to belong.

It only teaches the heart

how to live around its absence.

So I carry you

like an unfinished sentence,

like a song that stops

before the final note.

Because there is a place within me

that still speaks your name

without making a sound.

And no matter how much of myself

I gather back together,

there remains a space

shaped exactly like you,

not because I refuse to let you go,

but because

you are missing from me.