The Names With Faces

The list of names grows longer.
A digital graveyard in my hands,
a silent roll call of the lost.
I scroll through them,
one by one,
like flipping through the pages of a book,
whose ending was ripped out—
before I could finish.
Some names I whisper.
Some I can’t even bring myself to say.
But I carry you,
everywhere I go.

The weight of each loss,
the sting of each absence,
it never truly settles.
Some days it crushes me,
pressing into my ribs like a vice,
wringing the breath from my lungs.
Other days,
it drifts in like fog,
a dull ache behind my eyes,
a familiar shadow—
I’ve learned to live with.

I see your faces in my phone,
still and untouched,
trapped behind a screen.
Smiling,
laughing,
alive.
But that was before.
Before the accident,
before the sickness,
before the choice,
before life took you,
and left me here—
still breathing,
still standing,
still carrying the weight,
of every empty space,
you left behind.

I carry the names,
but I carry the faces, too.
Frozen in time,
never changing,
never aging.
You will never grow old.
Never fall in love again.
Never see the places you once dreamed of.
Never hold the hands you once reached for.
Never know the person I’ve become
after losing you.
And I will never know the person,
you could have been.

Some left in silence,
a fading presence,
a slow slip from this world
until nothing remained,
but a hollow space where you used to be.
I watched,
helpless,
as time stole the breath from your lips,
as the light in your eyes dimmed,
as hands once warm—
fell cold in mine.
And I stayed there,
long after,
long after your skin lost its color,
long after the room went still,
long after the world
moved on,
without you.

Some left in violence,
ripped away in an instant,
without warning,
without a last goodbye.
One second you were here,
and the next,
you were a phone call,
a headline,
a number added to a statistic
that no one will remember,
except me.
I replay it in my head,
over and over,
the cruel finality of it all.
No time to prepare,
no chance to say the words—
I will regret not saying
for the rest of my life.

Then there are the ones
who left by choice.
The ones who stood at the edge,
who let go,
who slipped away into the dark—
before I could reach them.
Before I could remind them
that they weren’t alone.
That I still needed them.
That I would have carried their pain
if it meant they stayed.
But they are gone.
And I am here,
grappling with the questions
they took with them.

And then—my twins.
The ones I never got to hold.
The ones I loved before they ever took a breath.
Two tiny lives,
two hearts beating inside me,
and then—nothing.
No cries, no warmth,
no firsts, no lasts.
Just silence.
I carry them in the empty space of my arms,
in the ghost of a lullaby I never got to sing,
in the weight of all the birthdays
that never came.
I wonder if they would have looked like me.
If they would have had my eyes.
If they’d have reached for my hand.
I wonder who they would have become.

But I also carry the moments before the loss.
Before the pain swallowed you whole.
Before the world decided it was time to take you.
I carry the laughter, the warmth, the days
that felt endless.
The way you smiled when you didn’t know
it would be your last.
The plans we made,
the ones you never got to keep.
The places you said you would go.
The way you threw your head back when you laughed.
The way you held me when I cried.
The times I thought we had forever.

I carry the songs we sang,
the stories we told,
the quiet moments when words weren’t needed,
when just being there was enough.
I carry the late-night talks,
the dreams you whispered into the dark,
the memories so bright they blind me
when I think too hard about them.

I carry the love that existed
before grief took its place.

So many birthdays uncelebrated.
So many holidays with empty seats.
So many messages I still type
and never send.
As if somehow,
somewhere,
you might still read them.

And the list grows.
Another name, another loss,
another weight I never asked for
but cannot put down.
I tell myself I will not add another.
That the universe has taken enough.
But it never stops.
Grief never stops.
Death never stops.

I close my eyes and I hear you.
Laughter from another time,
footsteps down a hall,
a voice calling my name.
But when I turn, there is nothing.
Only the hollow hum of absence.

I carry you in the spaces
you left behind,
in the words you once said,
in the songs you loved,
in the places I stand alone
where we once stood together.

You are gone.
But I am still here.
Still living.
Still breathing.
Still carrying you,
everywhere I go.

~CK 1.28.2025