When You Leave Poem by cassidy Lovato

I always feel it
before you're even gone.

In the way the room shifts,
in the quiet that settles too early,
in the space beside me
that already knows your name.

You leave
and somehow
everything in me follows.

I miss you
in the smallest ways first.

The way your hand finds mine
without thinking.
The way you brush my hair back
like it's instinct,
like it's yours to move.

The way you look at me
not just with your eyes,
but with something deeper
that I have never had to question.

I miss your laugh
filling the room,
your warmth beside me at night,
the way you exist so fully
that even silence feels alive
when you're in it.

The kids feel it too.

They carry your pieces
in their sass,
in their laughter,
in the way they light up
just hearing your voice.

You are everywhere here
even when you are not.

And I tell myself
this is our life.
This is what we chose.
This is what we are building.

But knowing that
doesn't make it easier
when the door closes.

Because the truth is,
I want all of it.

Every second.
Every ordinary moment.
Every breath beside you.

And instead
I stand here
learning how to be whole
with pieces of myself
miles down the road with you.

I do something strange
when you leave.

I pull away a little.
I make it easier.
I soften the edge
before it can cut too deep.

But what I really want
is the opposite.

To hold onto you
until the last possible second.
To memorize every part of you
like I could somehow
make it last longer.

To disappear
into your arms
so completely
that distance
wouldn't know where to begin.

You are not just
who I love.

You are my best friend,
my partner,
my home in a world
that never stays still.

And loving you
like this
is the easiest thing
I have ever done.

Missing you
is the hardest.