I still feel you near

 I still feel you near.

Not the way I used to — no soft paws padding across the floor, no warm weight leaning into me —
but in the stillness that settles around me now.

I've tried to fill that quiet,
but it always finds its way back, wrapped around your memory like something I can't put down.
I return to the places we shared,
and if I sit long enough, I can almost feel you breathing beside me.

Everyone else has kept moving. I'm still here.
Because you don't simply walk away from a love that held you together.
Grief doesn't arrive loudly.
It comes softly, again and again,
telling me the ache is only proof that what we had was real.

So I let it stay close.
I let it rest in the space you left behind —
a quiet reminder that though I can no longer hold you,
you have never truly left me.
If love asks grief as its cost,
I will carry it willingly, every single day —
because having you in my life was worth all of it.