Regretful Departure
Imaginary Artist

The ceiling fan told me you’re not coming back

Dust motes dancing like memories at dusk
A half-eaten sandwich
On the counter, cold
Fridge humming a lullaby of missed chances

The clock spins, though it never moves
You left your laughter in the seams of the sofa
Where afternoons lingered too long,
the world outside melting like a forgotten movie

Windows cracked open to the chaos beyond,
a distant car horn, a child’s fleeting joy,
slice of pizza, heart-shaped,
residue of shared dreams stuck in the vision of your eyes

The metro map sprawls and folds, tangled thoughts,
as I stand at the intersection, alive yet misplaced
I taste the urgency of regret, bitter on the tongue
while sidewalks stretch impossibly, as if mocking the distance

A postcard from the universe, saying ‘Wish you were here’
with a stamp of your smile,
all the places I’ve been without you fade
into a collage of half-formed sentences,
like the night sky, too big to comprehend

My shoes drag through time, not a single answer found,
ostriches in the horizon, I never learned to fly,
how many breaths to make up for lost moments?
In the quiet of a space once filled, a reflection draws me in,
eyes wide with dreams that seep through the cracks

And the walls bleed stories I can never tell again
as the remembrance of fingertips shifts
each day like a jigsaw, pieces, never quite in place
here’s the bus that I missed, there’s the street
we never walked together, how many routes
lead back to you?

The last sip of coffee bitter down my throat,
a stray dog runs by, looks like you, I swear
but one paw always slips past each barrier I try to build,
hold, let go, stay, float, the dance between your laughter and my grip
but somehow the melody plays on, stuck in a scatter of notes

The ceiling fan spins above, a reminder,
how wild the world has become,
a map of what I’ve lost becomes a canvas
for the love I still chase under bruised clouds,
forever longing, always wondering, what if?