The sheets were still
tucked on the left side,
untouched since morning.
She lay on the right,
listening to the
refrigerator hum down the
hall, the city breathing
through the cracked
window. It wasn't that
she missed anyone in
particular. It was the
shape of absence — a
whole half of the bed
that no one had claimed,
a pillow that stayed
cool.
Somewhere between midnight
and the first grey of
dawn, she pulled the
spare blanket closer and
decided that loneliness,
tonight, was just a room
that hadn't learned her
warmth yet.