if you leave

“there was a time you'd get mad over nothing a missed call, a joke that landed wrong, silence that stretched too long and i'd sit with it, not fix it, just sit until your shoulders came down and you let me back in that's the part i got good at, sitting with your storms because i figured out early, if you got mad, who would come to calm you down i used to think it was just me, that no one else knew the way in so i learned you slow, the way you learn a language nobody else speaks your anger had grammar and i memorized every rule of it knew when to talk and when to just stay close and quiet knew which apologies you needed said out loud and which ones you just needed felt but somewhere in all that learning, something started slipping not your anger, that stayed the same, it was the space around it you started pulling doors closed that used to stay open and i stood outside them, still holding everything i knew about you that's when the other question started showing up uninvited if you leave, who will come to make me forget you because i can sit with your storms, i learned how to do that i never learned how to sit with your absence so now i rehearse it before it's even happened the morning after you're gone, reaching for my phone before i remember there's no one to text setting two cups down before i remember it's just me come back mad if you have to, i'll take it over this slam every door, i'll still be standing here memorizing the sound just don't leave quiet don't leave me standing in a house that still smells like you”