Ghost Limbs

It's funny, isn't it?
How absence can weigh more than presence ever did.
Like a ghost limb, aching where you used to be.

I still reach for you sometimes,
In the empty space beside me in bed,
In the crowded room, searching for your familiar smile,
In the silence, waiting for your voice.

My hand closes on air.

They say time heals all wounds.
But time just makes you learn to live with the scars.
They fade, maybe, but they're always there.
A roadmap of where I've been wounded.

I remember the way you used to laugh,
A full-bodied, joyful sound that filled the room.
Now the room just echoes.

I replay our memories like old movies,
Trying to recapture the feeling, the warmth,
But the screen is grainy, the sound distorted.
It's not the same.
It will never be the same.

I try to be strong.
I tell myself you wouldn't want me to be sad.
But the sadness is a part of me now,
Woven into the fabric of my being.

It's not all the time, this ache.
There are moments of joy, of laughter,
of forgetting.
But then the wind shifts, a song plays,
A familiar scent lingers,
And it's back.
The phantom limb throbbing.

People tell me to move on.
To find someone new.
But how can I replace a piece of myself?
How can I just forget?

You were more than just a person to me.
You were my home.
My safe place.
My anchor.

And now the anchor is gone.
And I'm adrift.

I keep searching for you in the faces of strangers,
In the places we used to go,
In the dreams I can't quite remember when I wake.

Maybe someday the ache will lessen.
Maybe someday I'll learn to live with the emptiness.
Maybe someday the ghost limb will finally fade.

But until then, I'll keep reaching.
I'll keep remembering.
I'll keep loving you, even in your absence.
Because even in the silence, your love still echoes.
And that echo, however faint, is enough to keep me going.
It has to be.

Because the alternative is unthinkable.
The alternative is to forget you entirely.
And that…that would be the real death.