“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong at the broken places.”
-Ernest Hemingway
(Beginning: The Letting Go)
I watch your shadow detach itself
from mine—no fanfare,
just the quiet severing
of what I thought was permanent.
Your eyes, once warm as whiskey,
now reflect only absence.
(Middle: The Falling)
They say what goes up
must come down.
But no one warns you
about the floating—
that terrible suspension
between holding on
and learning to fall.
I orbit your memory
like a satellite with no planet,
all my systems pinging
for a response
that never comes.
(End: The Landing)
The impact surprises me:
how a man can hit bedrock
and still keep breathing.
They don’t tell you
about the aftershocks—
how a song, a scent,
the way morning light
catches dust just so,
can fracture ribs
already broken.
I scrape my palms raw
digging through the wreckage
for one surviving shard
to prove:
we were here.
We happened.
(Final Question)
Do hearts keep time
after the music stops?
Mine ticks on,
a stubborn metronome
still counting the measures
where your name used to be.


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