Letters to a Shadow

The Ghost of You.

_____________

The night wraps me in silence, but your absence is louder-
a phantom touch on skin that once knew warmth. 
I whisper your name to the hollow dark, 
but only echoes answer, cruel and worn. 

My hands remember the shape of you-
or was it just my dreaming? 
Fingers trace empty air where your breath should be, warm against my neck.   
Now there’s nothing but the weight of longing left unsaid…
A love unreturned bleeds into ink instead.

  
The hours bend like spoons in this sleepless room-
each tick of the clock another wound.
I play old conversations backward,
trying to rewrite endings where you stayed.
(But you never stay.)

Your ghost flickers-
the afterimage burned behind closed eyes:
your laugh dissolving into static,
your smile slipping through my fingers like smoke.

And still, I ache for something I cannot name-
not just you , but what we almost were.
What lingers isn’t love…
just its shadow.

_____________

-sultan