Weeping Willow

In the silence that remains after a love has slipped away, we are left with the echoes of what once was—a haunting reminder of a connection too deep, too intense, to ever truly fade. This poem is for the one who left behind an irreplaceable void, whose absence has become a shadow stretching across every moment. It is a lament for a love that burned fiercely, a love that was both salvation and destruction, a love that could never be fully realized yet refuses to be forgotten. Through the grieving verses, I find solace in the beauty of what was, even as I mourn the impossible distance that now lies between us. If you ever read this, I know you would smile and ask me how do I know your entire thoughts and feel the same as you?

Where did you go after you left me?

This house has turned into a mausoleum,

filled with echoes of your voice,

your laughter trapped between the walls like a ghost

that refuses to cross over.

The floorboards sigh beneath my steps,

the windows frost over with loneliness,

and the air tastes like unsaid goodbyes.

The world grieves in shades of silver and sorrow,

a canvas washed in starless gray.

The willows outside my window weep with me,

their branches heavy with rain,

bending beneath the weight of longing.

I sit beneath them, knees pulled to my chest,

watching the wisteria sway like a funeral veil,

watching the sky unfold in slow, aching silence.

I wake in the blue hours before dawn,

wandering through empty streets, barefoot and breathless,

watching the sun rise the way you used to love it.

I wonder if you still watch it too.

Do you stand at your window,

bathed in soft, golden light,

whispering my name like a prayer you won’t let reach me?

I had so much anger toward you,

but beneath it, an ocean of tenderness,

waves upon waves of unsaid words that still whisper your name.

Why did you leave after seeing only the storm—

never the depth beneath?

Why do you haunt me in silence,

watching from afar, believing your absence is mercy?

You love me still—I know it, I feel it,

woven into the fabric of the night,

stitched into every dream where your voice finds me.

You whisper my name in your sleep,

but when morning comes, you lock your love away,

hide it behind the steel gray of your silence,

as if sparing me is a kindness.

But it is not kind.

It is an endless exile.

And I am left to wither beneath a weeping sky.

But like Psyche, I cannot help but wonder,

is my love not enough to make you return?

Is the silence between us your punishment,

or a trial I must endure to prove my devotion?

Like her, I long to touch the impossible,

to bridge the gap between your heart and mine,

but you, like Eros, are a fleeting shadow,

slipping through my grasp every time I reach for you.

The willows cradle me in their shadows,

their leaves trailing through my hair,

as if they alone understand what it means to grieve something still living.

Under the wisteria’s violet hush,

by the lake where the water holds the sky like a promise,

I see myself—

a lone figure with no one in sight.

But in the reflection beside me, you linger,

your head resting on my shoulder,

as if time never severed us,

as if love could outlive even loss.

The world is steel gray,

drained of the colors I once saw when I was nineteen—

when you were my whole universe,

when your laughter was the sound of constellations colliding.

I miss your teasing remarks, your maddening charm,

the way you made the mundane feel celestial.

You were my own piece of mythology,

my impossible legend, my vanishing god of Love.

I think of Antony and Cleopatra—

how love can be both an empire and its ruin.

I think of Orpheus looking back,

of Eurydice fading into shadow.

Was I always meant to lose you?

Was our fate written in the stars long before I knew your name?

And yet, I cannot let you go.

Not when the silver moon still rises,

not when the dawn still spills gold across the earth—

because somewhere, you are under the same sky,

breathing the same air,

even if I no longer belong in your world.

My love, even if you never return,

even if your voice is lost to me forever,

I will keep you like a sacred scripture,

etched into the marrow of my soul,

woven into the fabric of my every breath.

Because love—true love—does not wither in the dark.

It waits.

It lingers.

It stands at the edge of the universe and refuses to fade.

And so, I will love you, even in exile.

I will love you, even if you never look back.

Outside, the storm rages on, wind howling through the trees,

rain striking the earth like a lover’s fury.

But I know the storm is not only in the sky—

it lives within me too, a tempest that bears your name,

a grief that thunders, yet never fades.

© 2025 Inaba Tarek