Cold Corners

One of the few times cobwebs are a welcome sight.

Photo by Peter Herrmann on Unsplash

Walking through my home some days
feels like stumbling into new corners
of discovery but it's just areas I've been
avoiding because they're all landmines
of memory and misery. Since someone
recreated to be revisited in your head,
over and over, will only ever be seen
in a dead field full of stones. Finally,
every place with one less shadow
feels like stepping on dud after dud
and that room can just be empty
without waiting for answers
to questions that died 
the day that news reached you
and nothing was the same. Now,
those haunted spaces feel exorcised.
Nothing but cobwebs. So old. So unattended.
Collecting more dust than gravity gathers stars.
A room without the one I can never see again
would stalk me deep into my dreams.
Now it stirs nothing from me
and that is a relief. 
And yet I wonder
if it means I'm moving on
or leaving an important part
of my life to be nothing
but a footnote in my history.
Acceptance is agonizing but respectful.
Grieving is cathartic and respectful.
Feeling nothing is a cold betrayal.
If the cost of moving on is forgetting
then let my heart remember
until its final beat.

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