What Remains

You were there when I woke,
not new, not arriving,
already in the room.

I did not ask for you.
You sat without speaking,
as if you had always belonged.

I tried to leave you.
I filled the day with work,
with errands, with voices.
You waited.

At night you came closer.
Not cruel.
Not kind.

You did not speak.
You did not need to.

I thought if I named you
you might lessen.
If I understood you
you might move on.

You did neither.

You stayed in the chair,
in the air between objects,
in the space where a voice
should have been.

I began to see
you were not separate.

You were what remained
when something was taken.

You were the shape
of what I had loved.

You did not leave.
You will not leave.

You sit with me now,
quiet,
as I go on.