Where You Should Be

There is a space in every day
Where you should be
Not loud, not always noticed,
But certain,
like breath.

I find it in small things,
In the way the morning lingers too long,
In the quiet after laughter
When I turn, almost instinctively,
to share it with you.

Longing is a strange companion
It does not shout,
It settles softly,
Threading itself through ordinary moments
until everything feels slightly unfinished.

I carry you in questions now,
In the stories I still tell
As if you might answer,
As if distance could somehow
be undone by memory.

And though I move forward
Because time insists that I do,
There is always a part of me
Standing still
right where you left me.