Empty Chair in Sunlight

The café chair

catches light like a promise I forgot—

empty, warm, a place once held by her.

I sit across, hands too small

for the space where words should fill.

Her silence, a weight pressed between us.

Sun cuts through dust motes,

slicing the quiet where my voice breaks off—

a crack, a whisper I never sent,

wrapped in the afternoon heat.

I wanted to say sorry but my throat

clenched tight, and the chair stayed empty,

a monument to what’s never said,

just the soft heat lingering long after.