You Didn’t Take It All With You

You packed your clothes and shoes

Your special pillow, makeup and such

Into a bag that I gave you

And into your little clutch

And with those bags in hand and eyes full of tears

You walked out the door

Protesting that I escort you

Down the street to your car

You drove away for the last time

And I went back inside

Into my still apartment

Into my room to hide

And after a sleepless night I woke

To find you still not there

But on the blanket next to me

A length of your hair

I began to search around my home

And it didn’t take long to find

The things you forgot to take with you

The traces you left behind

On your towel I can still smell your conditioner

And there’s one of your hair-ties on the floor

The washcloth I just scrubbed you with

It was hanging on the shower door

On my hard drive a short story you wrote

Your birthday marked on my calendar

Little notes from you in my bedside drawer

And one on the kitchen counter

Your bag lunch is in the icebox

And the leftovers of our last meal

A sweatshirt of mine is hanging on the coat rack

The one you liked and tried to steal

On the couch is my olive-drab cap

That you wore the night before

As I unpacked from my trip down south and smiled

As you lay on the couch and snored

I started to drive myself crazy

In my exhaustive search

Because with every object a trace of you

On everything, a memory perched

It’s useless to try to hide these things

Because they are everywhere

Not just the smell of you in bed

Not just the lengths of your hair

There’s gifts you gave me, and movies we watched

There’s photos and poems and books

Your past-used cup is next to the sink

Things are everywhere I look

Even the computer I write this on

You gave it to me last year

I’ll always cherish that memory

And all the other ones we made here

I’m sobbing now because I know you won’t return

But none the less it’s true

That though you chose to walk away

You didn’t take it all with you

Daniel Silver