Auntie

The air thins now
where your laughter used to bloom

A sudden quiet settles
in the corners of the house
where your voice was once the brightest echo

You were the axis I spun around
a sturdy, gentle north star
always visible even through the thickest clouds

My world tilted a little sideways
the day you slipped beyond the horizon line
a theft by time, a cruel and early taking

I search for you in the sunlight slant
across the kitchen floor
the way it used to catch the silver in your hair

You were the keeper of my small secrets
the heavy ones too, the ones that needed air
you held them softly in your hands

No judgment, only the quiet understanding
a knowing look that said
I see all of you, and it is enough

When the loneliness pressed in
a physical weight against my chest
you were the instant antidote

A phone call away, always
a cup of tea waiting
a space cleared just for me at your table

I could confess the silliest fears
the ambitious dreams that felt too large to speak aloud
and you would just nod, fueling the fire gently

You were an architect of comfort
building small sanctuaries with just your presence
a bulwark against the sharp edges of growing up

Now the silence where your counsel should be
is a vast, echoing canyon
I shout into it sometimes, just to hear the sound die

I look at others who are giants in their fields
who move mountains with speeches and influence
and I think, they are heroes for the masses

But my hero lived in worn cardigans
in the smell of baking bread and old paperbacks
a quiet, steadfast champion of just one small life

That life was mine, entirely
a landscape defined by your unwavering belief

I still reach for the phone
the muscle memory of needing you strong
before the memory of absence floods back

It hurts differently now, this missing
it is not a sharp wound but a constant dull ache
a limb that knows it is no longer connected

The world is noisier now without your anchor
the path less clear in the fog
I have to learn the map again, alone

But sometimes, in the quietest moments
when the wind moves through the tall trees just right
I feel a familiar warmth settle near my shoulder

A whisper without sound
a gentle reminder that even gone
you are still the foundation I stand upon

And that, Auntie, is a kind of forever
I didn't know we could have.