Write Stuff

Between Your Blinks
By AW

You have opened your eyes,
and the room breathed in all at once.
Light touches you now,
but it doesn’t seem to land.
Your gaze passes through walls,
through me,
as if you are looking for a door
only you can see.

I stand beside your bed
and speak your name anyway.
I tell you small things—
how the children asked about you,
how the world is still waiting,
how I am still here.
I talk because love doesn’t know
how to be silent.

I wonder where you are.
Are you inside that quiet body,
crowded with thoughts you cannot send out?
Are you remembering us—
the sound of our laughter,
the weight of our hands in yours,
the life we were in the middle of living?

Your eyes do not answer.
They stare into somewhere far away,
and it breaks my heart
to not know if you can see me crying,
if you can hear me begging you
to come back.

This is not how you were meant to be—
not this still,
not this distant.
You were movement, voice, warmth.
You were presence.
You were here.

I wish I could reach inside the silence,
take your hand wherever you are,
and guide you home—
back to your name,
back to our children’s faces,
back to the man we love
exactly as he was before.

Until then,
I will sit beside you.
I will keep talking.
I will keep believing
that somewhere behind those unfocused eyes,
you are listening,
remembering,
finding your way back to us.