When I Stopped Saying

Listen—

it isn't hell.

It's your name

when I stop saying it.

The sky didn't fall.

Nothing burned.

Just an ordinary afternoon,

a sentence I shouldn't have said,

and your silence

not reaching back.

I kept talking—

as if words could hold

what was already leaving.

You were looking at the table.

That's where it broke.

Not in fire,

not in anything worth remembering—

there,

in that small gesture

I missed.

I name you less,

but not better.

Sometimes you return

in small things:

a glass left cloudy,

a word I step around,

the habit

of turning my head

at a sound that isn't you.

I ask for nothing.

This is what remains—

a voice worn down

by learning too late

that some losses

arrive in silence

and only begin to hurt

when there's no one left

to hear them.