Ash on the Mound

The ghost of your dent in the cushion still breathes. It's a monument built of a thousand old scenes. I ran my hand over it tonight, just to feel the difference in the fabric. It’s silly, I know. But it's the only way I can feel you anymore, dear.

You are here now, on the other side of the coffee table. I keep looking at my hand and then at yours. I used to find an entire universe in the way your fingers curled around mine. Now, I feel only the chill of the air on my skin. We've become experts at agreeing on the silence. It's not a fight. It's not anger. It's worse. It's nothing.

I want to scream, or maybe just whisper, "What happened to us?" But you'd just give me a tired look and say something equally tired, and we'd be right back where we started. We're suspended in this house we used to call a bed.

The blankets are piled up in the corner just like they've always been, and the fairy lights flicker and hum our last song. I trace the soft curve of your cheek with my eyes, remembering sunrises, whispers, and sighs. That same laugh still echoes from a different time. What a beautiful lie that we've held onto for so long. I search for a reflection of me in the depth of your gaze, but you're not there to see.

You're a living sculpture of a man I once knew so intimately. I wish a part of me didn't still hope. That maybe tomorrow, you'll look at me and I'll see the person I fell in love with. We’re still in the frame, but the picture's all wrong. I want to ask if you feel the chill where the fire died, if you see the stranger sitting where my lover used to hide. Your eyes never even landed on me. It’s as if I've become a piece of furniture—lost and lonely in the dark. I'll just sit here and pretend that the heat from you is still real. But the truth is in the gray ash on the mound. This is all that's left to feel. I’m just trying to get used to the cold.