I still listen closely

 I still listen closely.

Even when I know there’s nothing left to hear.
Even when the house has settled into its new kind of quiet.
Even when reason tells me to stop waiting.
My heart… doesn’t always agree.
There are moments I can’t explain.
When I pause mid-task.
When I stand still in the hallway.
When the world feels like it holds its breath for half a second.
And I swear—
I might hear you.
Not loudly.
Not clearly.
Just enough to make me turn my head.
Just enough to make hope flicker again.
I still listen for the soft rhythm you used to bring into every space.
The little sounds that meant you were here.
The gentle movement of you shifting in your bed.
The quiet paws that followed me without asking for anything in return.
The sigh you gave when you finally felt safe enough to rest.
Those sounds lived inside my days.
And now… I listen for their absence.
Sometimes I catch myself searching for patterns in silence.
As if love could leave behind echoes only I am meant to hear.
As if memory might still turn into sound if I wait long enough.
The hardest part is not that the noise is gone.
It’s that my body still remembers it.
My heart still leans toward it.
My life still makes space for it.
Even now, I find myself listening at the door for a greeting that won’t come.
Listening to the floor, expecting the familiar rhythm of paws.
Listening to the air, as if it might suddenly remember how to speak your name.
And when nothing answers me…
I don’t stop loving you.
I just listen a little softer.
A little deeper.
A little more inside myself.
Because something strange happens with love after loss.
It doesn’t disappear.
It relocates.
It begins to live in places no sound can reach.
And maybe that’s why I still listen.
Not because I expect you to return.
But because part of me believes you never truly left.
I think you learned how to exist differently.
In the pause between heartbeats.
In the warmth that arrives for no reason.
In the quiet moments when the world feels less heavy for a second.
Maybe that’s you.
Or maybe that’s just love refusing to go silent.
Either way…
I still listen closely.
Not for footsteps.
Not for movement.
But for the feeling of you.
And somehow…
I always find it.