Echo

There’s a place
inside me
that used to answer
when someone said my name.

It doesn’t anymore.
It’s quiet there—
too quiet—
like a room
after the furniture’s been taken
but the indent in the carpet
still remembers the weight.

I don’t talk about
what left.
I don’t describe
the moment it went.
I just feel
the echo
of something
that isn’t here
pulling at the edges
of what is.

People say
I seem thinner,
like I’m missing
a layer
they can’t quite name.
They don’t know
how right they are.

There’s a hollow
behind my ribs
where warmth used to live.
It didn’t vanish—
it was taken,
quietly,
the way a thief
removes a painting
without disturbing
the dust around it.

Now the space
is too large
for the body
that holds it.
I walk around
feeling the draft
of an absence
that won’t close.

I don’t scream.
I don’t break.
I don’t bleed.
I just carry
the shape
of what was stolen—
a negative imprint,
a soul‑sized vacancy
that no one sees
until they look
too long.

And when they do,
they flinch,
because emptiness
has a way
of staring back.