The hospital smell clings to my clothes,
a phantom scent of disinfectant and decay,
even months after you've turned to ash.

Your empty bed screams in the silence of our house,
the indentation of your wasted body still pressed into the mattress
like a ghost trying to hold on.

I trace the rim of your favorite teacup,
the one with the tiny chip you never let me fix,
and my fingers come away cold,
so cold,
as if death has permanently settled in the porcelain.

The pills spill from the orange bottle on your nightstand,
a colorful cemetery of failed hope,
each capsule a tombstone marking another day
you slipped further away from me.

I watched you waste,
watched cancer eat you from the inside out
like a ravenous beast I couldn't name or fight.
Your beautiful body became a roadmap of pain,
veins like rivers carrying poison instead of life.

And I stood by,
useless,
helpless,
praying to a god who wasn't listening,
while you became less and less,
until you were nothing but bone and suffering
and eyes that begged for release.

Why you and not me?
Why am I still breathing air that you can no longer taste?
Why does my heart still beat when yours has stopped?
Survival feels like a betrayal,
like I've stolen the breath that should have been yours.

The mirror shows your face superimposed over mine,
hollowed eyes and sunken cheeks,
a future I'm already living without you.
I smash the glass,
watch the pie

Your wedding dress hangs in the closet,
a ghost of white in the darkness of our shared room,
the one you never got to see me wear,
the one I now wrap myself in at night,
the silk a shroud against the cold reality of your absence.

The cancer was a thief,
creeping into our home like a burglar in the night,
stealing your breath,
your strength,
your future,
leaving behind only pain and the hollow echo of what once was.

I remember the day you were diagnosed,
the doctor's words like stones dropped into a still pond,
ripples of shock spreading outward until they reached me,
standing there in the sterile office,
my life shattering into a million pieces I would never be able to put back together.

The treatments were a torture chamber,
each round of chemo a new circle of hell,
your body a battlefield where modern medicine fought a losing war,
and I was the medic who could only watch,
helpless,
as the enemy claimed more territory with each passing day.

Your laughter, once the soundtrack of my life,
became a rare and precious thing,
a jewel in the rubble of our existence,
and I cherished each instance,
stored them away in the treasure chest of my memory,
not realizing they would become weapons against me in the end.

The night you died,
the world didn't stop as I had expected it to,
the birds still sang,
the traffic still hummed,
people still went about their lives,
oblivious to the fact that mine had ended,

Test, message - Thank you!