recently, abuela says her body is shrinking. day by day, inch by inch. she claims she is now the size of a matchstick, a whisper, a breath between words. she laughs when she says it, but I see her pressing her palms together, measuring the space she still takes up in this world.
one day, you untether your spirit. disappear. you magic away.
the dust on the windowsill will say you existed. the chair left slightly pulled out. the dent in the pillow where your head once rested.
and my songs. the ones I am writing now, threading myself into melody, leaving behind chords like fingerprints on glass. someone may hum them without knowing where they learned the tune. a lyric may echo in a stranger’s mind, turning over like a smooth stone in a pocket.
how I will not need to tell anyone about it — because someone will be there to listen. because silence knows. because absence lingers like the scent of orange peels on fingertips, like the warmth of a seat just left, like a song you can’t quite place but feel you’ve always known.
cookie nieves 
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