The photographs I kept of you have blurred—
Not from the water damage or the years—
I handled them so often they’re interred
Beneath the sediment of touch and tears.

I used to trace the landscape of your face,
The weight of you, the scent your neck had spelled—
But touch leaves no archive, keeps no trace;
The body can’t recall what it once held.

Your voice was something I could almost hold,
A living thing that curled inside my ear,
But I’ve listened until listening went cold—
Now when I replay, I hear it disappear.

Perhaps it’s mercy, this soft erasure—
Or so I say, as if the mind were kind.
But kindness would not smile while taking pleasure
In leaving me with nothing left to find.

I should have memorized you while I could,
Read every freckle, translated your terrain,
But I took love for granted, understood
Too late. Now grief bleeds out through every vein.

And so I hold what’s left: a fading blur,
Some muscle memory of how you felt,
A static hiss where once I heard you stir.
I hold on anyway—to what I held.