Toothpaste and Takeout

I still buy your brand of toothpaste like my body’s on autopilot, reach, grab, pay, like my muscles haven’t heard, you’re not coming back. The plant on the windowsill is dead. Not from heartbreak, just neglect. I guess we both forgot, how much things need watering. Every night, I scroll through a hundred lives on a tiny screen, but yours still echoes. in the silence between texts, that don’t come. My playlists are liars. They shuffle joy and pain like they’re the same thing. And maybe they are. Because even that dumb song you used to hum while folding laundry makes my throat tighten like a fist. The bed is too big. I sleep on the left, because the right side still feels, like trespassing. Friends say "you’ll move on" like healing is a bus that’s just late, and not a slow crawl through grocery stores, through takeout menus for one. But today, I threw out your mug. Not with drama, no tears, no screaming, just a quiet choice. between holding on and making space. And I made space. That has to count for something.