Our Fragile Threads

The house sighs heavy now—
its walls no longer know how to hold us.
Our photographs sit like ghosts on the mantel,
cold witnesses to what we were
before the edges of our lives frayed,
before we forgot how to reach for each other.

The mornings come, pale and hollow,
their light spilling over his empty chair.
I set the table out of habit,
counting plates like unkept promises made
before his seat became a shrine,
before the weight of absence filled every room.

We walk past each other like strangers
and not even your footsteps disturb the silence.
I wonder if your grief, too, is louder than mine;
if it calls your name the way he did
before his laugh was just an echo,
before his hands let go of ours forever.

At night I lie still, listening for your breath,
counting the seconds between your sighs.
I dream of our boy with his bright, bright smile,
but wake in the shadow of what we lost
before love turned to sand slipping through our hands,
before the cracks between us became a chasm.

I cling to the tattered tapestry of us,
its threads unraveling but not yet gone.
Will you help me mend what’s torn?
Will you hear the prayers I no longer speak,
before the silence unwinds what remains?
Before we forget the pattern we once were?