Intermittent

You knock like it means something.

Just once.

Just enough to wake the house.

A small, polite sound.

A holiday greeting.

A hand on the glass.

And then you leave.

No chair pulled out.

No staying.

No weather.

Just a disturbance in the air

and my nervous system rearranging itself

around your absence.

You don’t take anything.

You don’t ask for anything.

You don’t offer anything.

You just remind me that you exist

and then disappear back into your life.

I am left holding the echo

like a cup with nothing in it.

They call this kindness.

I call it interruption.

Because what you touch does not close again easily.

Because you wake something you do not tend.

Because I am not built for half-presence.

So I am learning the most difficult grammar:

Not anger.

Not blame.

Not explanation.

Just no more doors.

Not slammed.

Not announced.

Just… closed.

And I will miss you

in the way one misses a season

that no longer belongs to this climate.

But I will stop living in winter

just because you pass through in snow.