Ghosts of The Living

They sit at the table, still fill up the room,
Their coat on the hook, their mug on the chair,
We talk to the walls, to a lingering perfume,
Like something important is still in the air.

They comment online with the weight of a phone,
A word here or there on a flickering screen,
Close enough to remind us we are not alone,
Far enough to feel everything in between.

They breathe, they laugh, they carry on alive,
Yet the part that once met us no longer shows up,
We keep setting places, hoping love will survive,
Drinking memories down from a cracked little cup.

There is no black suit for the quietly leaving,
No line of cars crawling behind in goodbye,
Just the strange kind of mourning for someone still breathing,
And the ache of a question that ends with a why.

This grief has no finish, no clean sense of relief,
No flowers that tell us exactly what to say,
We wake up surprised by the strength of the grief,
For a loss that still stretches and will not stay away.

So honour the pain, but do not let it stay,
You cannot live waiting for ghosts to be true,
Sometimes love means letting the living drift away,
And choosing a life that still shows up for you.