Pretending.

I think we all do this at least a little bit... It doesn't help, and it can't change anything, but at least it's nice for a few seconds.

You lingered on my pillow

For just a while longer,

I imagined you had never left

As I drew you in

With each staggered breath.

 

I don’t need to look to find these;

A stray hair here,

A necklace over there,

The smell of perfume

Still hanging in the air.

 

Shadows cast against walls

Forming shapes that could be you,

Creaks in the floor

could be your return

Through the sliding glass door.

 ---

When I close my eyes at night,

In the dead quiet,

while holding my breath,

Asides from the cold,

It feels like you never left.

Author's Note

the last stanza wasn't going to be in the same form as all the others, but it stood out like a sore thumb and made it look unfinished, so i just slapped it together and reversed the rhyme of the first.