“Quiet Corners”

I miss you in the quiet corners—

not the loud ones full of tears,

but the soft, invisible spaces

I’ve learned to cry inside for years.

Like folding laundry in silence,

or standing in checkout lines,

or when someone says, “Tell me about him,”

and I just say, “He was kind.”

I carry your name like a whisper

stitched into my seams,

smiling when I speak of you,

but screaming in my dreams.

They think I’ve moved on,

because I laugh and get things done,

but I still flinch at father’s day cards

and pretend the grief weighs none.

You were my first safe place—

my compass, my home, my guide.

Now I pretend I’m fine

with a storm just under the tide.

So I miss you in the quiet corners,

where no one else can see—

grief is a ghost I dine with

while the world has coffee with me.