I never saw how tired you were, until I saw you sleeping in a chair that wasn't yours to keep. I knew the shape of your hands by how they folded, knew the sound of the door before it opened. But I never learned the weight you carried in your spine, until the room forgot to hold you upright. You were always the one who stayed, and I was always the one who left early. I looked at you the way I look at walls— there, steady, never asking to be seen. But walls do not sleep in chairs, and chairs do not wait all night for a son. The wicker chair remembers. It holds the shape of two people now— one who left, and one who stayed. And I was too busy leaving to see either of them. (Mmm...) (Mmm...) There was a name you used to whisper, a small prayer folded under your breath. I never asked what it was for, maybe because I already knew: it was not for you. It was for the road I was about to take, and the way I always turned my face from home. I hear it now in the quiet, not as a word, but as a hand that keeps reaching for the door, long after the door has closed. The wicker chair remembers. It holds the shape of two people now— one who left, and one who stayed. And I was too busy leaving to see either of them. I was leaving, now I see: the house was breathing, waiting for me. Let me knock, let me stay, let the chair not be empty again. You were not a chair. You were a house. And I never knocked.
