As I Go I Wear You
I cook my eggs soft,
as you did, sliding them into the pan,
the yolk whole, trembling,
bright as something remembered.
My coffee’s black now,
the bitterness something I’ve learned
to let linger.
It made me feel alive,
but not the way you did.
The ramyun you loved,
with too much spice that burns your throat—I make it anyway,
the heat a habit
I didn’t ask for.
You are the weight on my grocery list,
heavy cans to the bottom,
soft bread on top, the way you always did.
I used to scatter things,
left them wherever they landed:
groceries, thoughts, pieces of myself.
Now it makes sense, I suppose;
this is better, more orderly.
And the things you hated:
the way I flinch at certain sounds,
the rhythmic drip, drip, dripping of water,
the clanking of dishes,
the way you could never stand
the smell of certain things.
They’ve slipped into me,
quiet as breath.
You’ve become the small,
unthinking rituals of my days,
unspoken habits
you left behind,
my body remembering
all the ways you linger,
like the jeans I forgot to return,
still here,
though they were never mine to keep.
Now, I wonder if I miss you,
or if I miss who I was
before I began wearing you.
About This Poem:
Through intimate domestic details and daily rituals, this poem examines how loss becomes woven into the fabric of everyday life. The speaker’s adoption of their lost loved one’s habits becomes both a form of remembrance and transformation.
Related Reading:
- “Inheritance” (family legacy)
- “What the Water Left Behind” (loss and memory)
- “Your Name” (absence and remembrance)
