I could say you ghosted me, as if

you left, as if there was a door,

a shape that filled the frame, a voice

that made the floorboards work for it.

 

But nothing left. That’s the whole thing.

You never came in far enough

to leave. Your name on my phone

was a rumor I kept feeding.

 

I built you out of Tuesdays,

out of soon and maybe later,

out of the way you never quite

said no, which I read as almost.

 

A haunting needs a house.

I gave you every room I had

and you moved through them like weather

somebody else was having.

 

So call it what it was:

not a disappearing act,

but the slow arrival of a fact:

that I was talking to the cold spot,

 

that the chair pulled out for you

had always held the shape of air,

that when you finally didn’t answer

the silence didn’t change at all