After the Last Sentence

The last word

hung there,

a small, clean break.

Then the white page,

blank as a fresh sheet

of snow, or a wall

just painted.

Nothing more.

I closed the cover,

slow, like shutting a door

on a room I’d lived in

for months, maybe years.

The weight of it,

a solid brick now,

not a world unfolding.

Just done.

And the quiet,

it expanded then,

filled the space

where their voices had been.

A kind of empty hum,

like after a long rain.

You just sit there,

holding the silence.