The Room Doesn't Know

I lit it before you came over.

That was—I don't know—six hours back.

You left mid-sentence. I sat in the hall

until the light under the door went black,

except it didn't. I checked.

The candle was still going.

The wax had pooled toward the window,

pulled by the draft from where you'd left it showing—

the exact direction you walked out.

The cushion still held your shape.

The room had no opinion on any of it.

That's the part I can't escape:

how a room just holds its furniture

through whatever you put it through,

how the wax doesn't choose a side,

how the wick burned the same for me as you.

I blew it out eventually.

The smoke went toward the window too.