When Everyone Has Gone Home
Is that the hardest part?
Mounds of dirt settle and sink back into the earth.Gravestones gradually collect dust.
Perhaps that’s the hardest part?
Pieces of their lives—represented in cups, jeans, and trophies—
All sold off,Given away to charity,The last bits rummaged through on the curbside of the old house.
Surely, that’s the hardest part?
The endless lists have all been checked off.Rings and notification dings have all but evaporated over the weeks
Grass starts to grow over top.New birth follows loss.It’s the circle of life, after all—ready or not.
It feels like this is the hardest part…
You fight for the last moments with brooms and mops in hand,Battling debris locked behind countertops.
Left with yourself now in the deafening silence of it all.
I know this is the hardest part
It’s the realization that it’s not just the loss of them—but also the loss of you.
Catching a glimpse in the mirror of someonewho used to look like a girl you once knew.
Lingering longer still,searching through the years you let your life slip away—in and onto the someone else’s that piled up.
The silence is defeating.Truth screams out in the night.
This, this right here, is the hardest part.
This is the season of finding you.
