My cat likes to sleep in the suitcase I never unpack. She's claimed it as her territory—this traveler's object turned into a nest. Maybe she's telling me to stop being a traveler. To stay somewhere long enough for someone to claim me as their home.
Silence after a phone call is the loudest silence. The echo of a voice that just was, and now isn't. I hold the receiver for a moment longer, pretending the connection hasn't ended. But the dial tone always wins. And I always hang up.
Your ghost visits me in the scent of rain on dry pavement—the smell of our first walk together. I can't escape it, and I don't want to. Some ghosts are welcome. They don't haunt; they accompany. And sometimes, accompaniment is better than presence.
Winter branches against a grey sky—they don't look dead, just waiting. I used to think leafless meant hopeless. Now I see the patience in their posture, the quiet faith that spring will come. I'm learning to be like them: bare, but still reaching upward.
Your voice on the answering machine—I kept it longer than I should. After three years, I finally deleted it. Not because I'd forgotten your sound, but because I realized I had memorized it. And what's memorized doesn't need to be recorded.
The train whistle at midnight sounds like a story leaving. I lie in bed and imagine all the people on that train—each with a heart full of arrivals and departures. I'm not on it. But I'm glad it passes through my night, carrying dreams that aren't mine.