Residue
- Rylie Martin
- Jul 1
- 2 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
Grief is trying to untie a knot
by pulling the wrong string.
Each tug tightens it
until the tangle becomes something
you've made with your own hands.
There are scissors beside you.
But cutting would mean no going back.
So you keep pulling.
To heal is to pull the knife out.
Everyone tells you it's the only way.
So you pull.
And you catch your reflection in the maroon pool beneath you
and mistake yourself for him.
You still hope the neighbors' footsteps
in the stairwell are his.
For half a heartbeat,
you are someone whose loveis coming home.
You empty the apartment,
trying to make it feel less empty.
Everything clinging like static has to go.
His mug. His towel. His pillow.His fingerprints. His smell. His skin cells.
You change the sheets.
But does it even matter if it's still the same mattress?
If you're sleeping on his side now?
You peel bumper stickers from the car,
only to realize the passenger seat
is still pushed all the way back
for legs longer than yours.
You see him in every television show,
so you watch a lava lamp instead—one glowing body
drifting into two,
wax showing you
what splitting in half feels like.
You keep trying to erase a story
written in pen,
then try to write another
with a pencil that has no lead.
The page stays blank.
Only indentations.
Invisible yet permanent.
Love was never the ink.
It was the pressure.
Some days you can't force food down your throat
because it catches on everything unsaid.
The bananas go bad.
He was the only one who ever ate them.
Losing ten pounds never made you feel so heavy.
You walk with your hands clasped together
because you can't bear the feeling
of them hanging empty at your sides.
Often you wake
wrapped in an embrace.
It is only your own arm.
You throw the flowers away.
But when you tip the bin into the dumpster,
they're lying perfectly on top.
You see his mouth in the tulips.
"My boyfriend is in there."
The words escape you before you can stop them.
As though loss could be mistaken for a body.
As though grief doesn't know the difference.
Maybe this is what it feels like to look out
from inside an open casket.
Mourning is always worst in the morning.
But it's not much better right now either—
I'd normally be with you.
I've run everything
through the wash.
Every shirt still remembers
the shape of your shoulders.
Maybe love was always the thread
that you don't notice
until the whole sleeve begins to unravel.
The apartment,
the passenger seat,
the tulips,
the bed—
everything looking untouched,
except for the person
who has to keep living among them.
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