To heal, or to simply learn to carry it

I always wonder if you ever truly heal from it or if you simply learn to carry the ache with grace, to fold it quietly into your ribs until it becomes a part of how you breathe.

I grieve for a person who is very much alive, someone who once belonged to a chapter of my life. A page I can still trace with trembling fingers, though I no longer live in its sentences.

The moment they walked away was the moment something in me that stayed behind. Watching the shape of them grow smaller without ever learning how to disappear.

Now I live in days wondering if you’re okay,

wondering if you get lonely at the dining table,

wondering if you’ve thought of me,

wondering if you ever miss me, the way I silently miss you.

I have yet to learn how to live with my heavy heart, but I have learned how to wake up each day knowing that I’ll never see you sitting at the dining table, waiting for me.