Open Spaces

The Caregiver Poet

It happened so strangely

loss arriving

twice at once.

You left, and so did she.

Now I am the one still standing,

listening to the silence rearrange the air.

My chest feels like

a broken house,

whole rooms missing,

cloudy light pouring through.

Seems like waiting

for it all to collapse,

for me to fold into

the emptiness

that hums where your voices used to live.

Yet somehow,

something remains—

thin thread of breath,

a steady pulse that

Won’t Forget.

Maybe that’s love refusing to die all the way,

teaching me to walk through ruins

and call them

My new home.

Morning seeps in gently

Berift of promise

but a presence

That won't be denied.

I feel the warmth rise,

See the light

and it tells me: I still belong in this world,

to the sky, to the beating heart of everything.

I'm still here relearning how to live.

Cloudia Charters