Letting Go

The picture loaded, slow.

A forwarded thing, a ghost from old emails.

Still that same slight slump to the shoulders.

Still that same too-bright, desperate smile.

A party, someone else’s living room,

the same kind of half-empty glass

I remembered them always holding.

And my chest, it didn’t clench.

No heat. No cold.

Just a stillness.

A kind of quiet air

after a storm you forgot

you were even standing in.

The ache was gone,

or maybe it was just yours now,

not mine.