What Remains Empty
A return that lingers in what is left behind
Some things come back—only to show us what never will.
🍪🍵🚶♀️🪑🍞🔕…
You used to place a plate of cookies
On the kitchen counter.
Now empty,
Since you were gone.
You would walk me to the school bus.
The path is
Empty.
🍪🍵🚶♀️🪑🍞🔕…
Your hands
Pouring the tea.
The cup now
Empty.
🍪🍵🚶♀️🪑🍞🔕…
"Have a cup,"
You would say.
The room sounds
Empty.
Your steps -
Clicked.
They now sound
Empty.
🍪🍵🚶♀️🪑🍞🔕…
You sat
At the table.
The chair now
Empty.
You baked bread.
The oven now
Empty.
🍪🍵🚶♀️🪑🍞🔕…
The cookie plate.
Blank.
Again.
The teacup again ...
🍪🍵🚶♀️🪑🍞🔕…
Original poem by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin. AI tags are coincidental.
For Vocal's What Comes Back prompt
About the Creator
Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin
Hi, i am an English Language teacher cum freelance writer with a taste for pets, prose and poetry. When I'm not writing my heart out, I'm playing with my three dogs, Zorra, Cloudy and Snowball.
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More stories from Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin and writers in Poets and other communities.
GRANDMA NELSON
Daddy pulled off the interstate, and I saw the all familiar red barn, and I knew we had arrived at Grandma Nelson's farm. I always had mixed feelings about seeing my Grandmother. It seemed she had as many Grandchildren as the old Mother in the shoe nursery rhyme. I saw her as different, but that is not why I hestiated. The truth be known I always got in trouble at her house, and ended up sitting in the car after I had been scolded.
By Susan Payton6 days ago in Fiction
Comments (4)
Though I always think things can be replenished and refilled
Oh, this was beautiful and heartbreaking. I feel exactly like this every time I remember that my grandma isn't with us anymore. I often want to call her and I pick up the phone, only to realise... no one's gonna be there.
This reminded me so much of my mum because we always had a cuppa and cookies together, thankyou for bringing back such lovely memories xx
Absence can return to us in small ways. Do share what you think!