The coffee cools

While I pretend not to notice.

Some things deserve

A longer goodbye.

Your name drifts through my mind

Like cream through dark warmth,

Softening edges I swore were sharp.

I hold the cup with both hands,

As if it might tell me

Where you are right now.

The room leans inward,

Listening with me.

Nothing arrives,

But nothing leaves either.

I imagine you smiling

The kind that forgives silence.

The last sip tastes braver than I am,

Lingering where certainty should be.

Love is strange that way:

It warms without asking,

It stays without proof.

I set the cup down gently,

Afraid to wake the moment.

If you ever wonder

Whether you were missed

Know this:

Even empty,

The cup remembered you.