Your Absence Is Not Empty

You did not disappear

You settled

Where the walls still remember you

You closed the space

And called it distance

Left the pressure

Breathing

Every step I take

Pushes back

Against something

That refuses to leave

Silence is not hollow

It resists

Your absence is not empty

You left it alive

Your absence is not empty

It claws from inside

Not empty

Not gone

You are still here

And I am not done

I tried to clear you out

But space remembers weight

You don't haunt me

You occupy

I open my mouth

And taste

Everything

You refused to say

You left nothing clean

Nothing quiet

Nothing dead

Some voids

Push back

Your absence is not empty

You left it alive

Your absence is not empty

It claws from inside

Not empty

Not gone

You are still here

And I am not done

Your absence is not empty

You left it alive

Your absence is not empty

It learned how to fight

Not empty

Not gone

You are still here

And I am not done