I used to fill a room with easy laughter,
My footsteps quick, my dreams too wide to keep.
Now silence follows closely ever after,
And nights grow long before I fall asleep.

The photographs still smile from dusty shelves,
Their colors fading just as mine have done.
The strangers in those frames were once ourselves,
Forever young beneath a kinder sun.

The telephone has learned to never ring.
The mailbox waits with nothing new to say.
The birds still greet the sweetness of the spring,
But no one seems to notice I still stay.

My hands remember every face they held—
A baby's cheek, a lover's weathered skin.
Those precious moments time itself dispelled,
Leaving only echoes deep within.

I speak aloud to empty chairs at night,
As though the ones I loved might answer me.
The darkness listens with a patient quiet,
Returning only endless memory.

The mirror shows a face I scarcely know,
Its lines engraved by sorrow, hope, and grace.
Inside, the child I was still whispers low,
Yet cannot find that youthful, fearless place.

The world walks faster than these aging bones.
It hardly sees the weary or the slow.
A crowded street can hold a thousand souls,
And still become the loneliest place I know.

I do not fear the moment I must leave;
I've made my peace with endings long before.
I fear becoming someone none will grieve,
A name erased from every heart once more.

So if you pass an old and quiet face,
Don't see the years that bent their weary frame.
See every dream, each love, each small embrace,
And speak to them as though you knew their name.