The Room Where You’re Not

There’s a kind of silence that doesn’t come from the absence of sound. It comes from the absence of someone. Like a frequency that used to hum just beneath your ribs and now it’s gone. The room is the same. Same light bleeding through the curtains. Same coffee ring on the table. But everything in it feels like a prop now, like the aftermath of a scene already played. You don’t notice how much space someone takes until they leave it behind. Not just physically, emotionally, gravitationally. Some people are planets. You orbited them without knowing. Then one day, you realise you’re drifting, weightless, nauseous from the sudden freedom. You try to fill the space with noise music, messages, meaningless motion. But the silence always catches up, like it knows your scent. It sits next to you, politely at first. Then it lays its head on your shoulder and makes itself at home. You don't miss the person. Not really. You miss who you were when they were near. And that? That’s the part that’s hard to clean up.