What You Leave Behind

Three years and we've never said more than hello.

A nod in the hallway.

An acknowledgment that we exist

in proximity to each other.

Today they're leaving

and I'm watching from my window

like a creep,

like I have any right to witness this.

They're loading a truck alone.

Plants. Books. A bookshelf.

The lamp with the broken shade—

the one I've seen through their window

a hundred times,

the one I've watched them sit under

reading or thinking or just being

in that pool of yellow light.

They wrap it in a blanket

like it's fragile,

like it matters,

like it's not just a lamp

with a broken shade.

At one point they sit on the curb

and don't move for five minutes.

Just sitting.

Just being still.

I think about knocking.

I think about asking if they need help.

I think about saying something

that isn't hello,

that isn't the surface-level acknowledgment

of existing in proximity.

I don't.

Instead I watch them get up,

watch them keep going,

watch them load the rest

and close the truck,

and stand there for a moment

looking at the empty window

where their lamp used to be.

I know that feeling.

The feeling of looking back

at a place you're leaving,

at the evidence of yourself

you're erasing,

at all the small rituals

that made a space feel like yours.

They get in the truck.

They drive away.

The window is empty now.

Just like it was before they lived there,

just like it will be when someone else moves in,

just like my window is empty,

like I'm empty,

like we were all just passing through,

leaving nothing but the shape

of where we used to be.