The Space Between I made space, that you happily took up, not a corner, not a sliver, but the wide room of my heart, walls painted with welcome, windows opened to your light. You settled in, carefree, as if my giving was endless, as if love was not a cost. Now you leave space, not the same kind, but a hollow that echoes, a silence shaped like you, an absence I cannot rearrange. I have to regretful fill it with broken prayers, with the sound of doors closing, with long nights where the bed tilts toward the side you left behind. For a while with grief, until grief ripens into memory, and memory softens into something I can touch without bleeding. Still, the space remembers. Still, I remember too.