Light in the Leaving

missT

​The rooms are quieter now,

echoes softened by the footsteps that have left.

I pour tea into a single cup

that once held the small warmth of your hands.

I do not reach for shadows anymore;

they have already moved on.

​And yet, in the hollow, I find

a stretch of air meant only for me

a space to inhale without pause,

to feel the slow, unclaimed weight

of a life returned to itself.

​Outside, the sky spreads its arms wide,

and I realize the truth of this quiet:

that freedom and loneliness

can be the same shape,

depending on whose hands are holding them.