My grief observed:

He was right; you went away,
slowly at first, but faster and faster
with time, with memory, with grief,
I exhale your absence more and more
until there is nothing left
to breathe but air, and
My writing becomes a flashlight shining
back into your empty spaces,
now my empty spaces,
the voids you will no longer fill,
the maps you wrote into existence
that still hang on the walls of my
history, still asking me to follow them
after all these years, even when
you are no longer there to point your
finger in the way you felt I ought to go.
You’re gone still, and even the writing
seems unreal, and even the thinking
and pondering and dreaming you back
when you cry in my sleep that you
didn’t want to let go,
you’re still gone, and it’s not you here
it’s nothing but me
and my empty pages, shining lights
into empty spaces.