"keeping, with nothing left to keep"

I go back to the place
where something once lived,
though nothing signals it now.

The cupboards are bare of clues;
dust has taken the role
of whatever once breathed here.

I try to lift what should rise,
but the air gives no reply—
only the musty fact
that time has swept clean
every scrap I might have leaned on.

So I stand in this cleared room,
    hands empty,
          waiting for a flicker
                    that refuses to return.

If there was a moment,
it has slipped beyond reach;
if there was a story,
its pages now turned to dust.

Yet I stay—
not to reclaim,
but to learn how to walk
with a space where something
used to be.

.