Between Our Shadows

Dear Sis,

There are places only you and I knew
the corner of the yard where the grass never grew,
the way we whispered secrets into the dark
as though the night itself were listening.

Now I walk through rooms and hear
the echo of your laughter caught in the walls.
It startles me, how memory can sound
so much like presence
how silence is heavier than noise.

I keep reaching for you in small ways:
setting two mugs instead of one,
saving the punchline for a voice that won’t return,
finding your favorite song
and letting it play until the world feels bearable again.

People tell me you’re gone,
but they don’t know what it means
to carry a whole history inside your chest,
to remember the younger version of yourself
only because your sibling was there to see it.

Grief, I’m learning,
is not about forgetting,
it is the art of living
with an unfinished conversation.

So I will walk forward,
but not alone.
You move with me,
quiet as breath,
steady as a shadow in the sun.