sixteen

You were sixteen a storm still forming, a boy with galaxies behind your eyes and silence in your chest. I was nine, too young to know how someone could vanish without a trace of goodbye. They said it was sudden. But grief is never sudden— it drips through the years like rain through a cracked roof. I remember your laugh like a half-finished song, your shadow in old photos where you still smile. Now I carry you in the quiet moments in the hush before sleep, in the ache of autumn. You are not forgotten. You are a name I whisper when the stars feel close and the world feels far.