The Day After

You wake. The bed is a shipwreck,

your body flotsam in the tangled sheets.

The sun spills in, indifferent,

spreads itself over the empty side,

the untouched pillow.

You sit. The kettle shrieks,

a voice not theirs but still, you listen.

Tea brews like a bruise, dark,

hot enough to scald but you drink anyway,

because it is morning, and you are still here.

You walk. Pavements do not care for grief,

they hold you up because that is their job.

A woman walks past, laughing into her phone—

you flinch, as if joy is something sharp.

It is.

You breathe. It does not feel like enough.

But it is something.

And tomorrow, you will do it again.

Not better. But easier.

Aspen Writes Poetry