The chair still faces the window like it expects a silhouette I never moved the books you stacked the night before you vanished The air in this room learned your temperature and kept it I talk to the spaces you used to occupy They answer in the same old hush I never said the sentence that might have changed the ending It lives under my tongue, patient, unspent Time folded itself around that one unfinished hour The light still falls across the table the way it did that last night I leave it that way so the room won’t notice how long you’ve been gone I kept your favorite cup I kept your favorite cup I kept your favorite cup I kept your favorite cup It sits where the light used to find you Empty, faithful, slightly chipped I wash it when the house is sleeping So the water doesn’t wake the years The rim still knows the exact pressure of your hands I never let another mouth touch it Some nights I lift it like you might walk in and need it Then I set it down again, just as empty as you left it You took the easy way out of remembering I kept the one thing that couldn’t walk away Everybody else called it clutter I called it the last honest thing in the house It knows the shape of your mouth better than I do now I smile at it the way I used to smile at you The smile that learned how to stay when everything else had already left I tell it the words I was too late to say It never answers, which is how I know it’s still yours I kept your favorite cup I kept your favorite cup Still waiting Still rinsed Still warm in my hands when the clock forgets its job The cup remembers the night you didn’t come back I remember the life that used to fit around it Nobody else does The cup and I stayed to do the remembering You got to disappear I kept your favorite cup