The Weight of Empty Rooms (Poem)

Written By: Ximena Quintana

Edited By: Suereya Abdella, Laila Kadry

Grief wears different faces

it does not come as one, 

but as many,

leaving emptiness in its wake.

It becomes a house of empty rooms

each fill with a memory,

a parent, a friend, a lover

all gone no matter how or where.

The first room in this house of sadness,

in it the parent is waiting,

the air heavy, the scent of childhood,

the shadow of a comforting embrace

that once held the whole world steady.

To lose a parent is to lose the sun,

to lose your center, to lose all hope,

warmth is gone, so is part of your heart.

In the second room, we have the friend,

echoes of laughter and inside jokes, 

memories made and moments lost.

No more random conversations 

or midnight rides,

the mirror that reflected you

is gone and is not coming back.

The partner inhabits the third room,

a loss that feels like a thousand deaths,

little things everyday reminding you of them,

no hand to hold, no one sitting on the empty chair,

no music, no voice, just empty space.

Grief is ever present, 

asking the same question:

what will you do with the love

that no longer has a home?

So you build a house of empty rooms, 

to put that love and those memories

in every corner.

Your answer is silence,

moments in the past,

the only thing that fills the house with a happy past.

In time, we leave the rooms,

holding the keys to the house

feeling its walls in our bones.

Grief never leaves you, it just softens,

it mutates constantly in happiness

for the life lived and the memories made,

in sadness for the loss, for the pain.

It becomes anger because gone is gone.

But eventually, you learn to live with it,

accepting that while they are no longer here,

you still have the house and 

you still feel the weight of the empty rooms.