The next morning comes the same as any other—breakfast, lunches, school bags, coats, the school run, work—the rush of ordinary life moving on.

But something has changed.

 

Not in the house.

In me.

 

Grief doesn’t stay where you put it.

It waits.

And then it finds you—usually when I’m home alone.

 

As it turns out—in the middle of making tea.

“Two sugars for me,” a voice says.

I know there’s no one there.

 

I’m stood with a spoonful.

'Jesus, what are you doing, Maryam?'

 

'You don’t take sugar in your tea,' I mumble to myself.

 

I’ve been here before—

but this is different.

 

I stand still for a second, the teaspoon in my hand, my mind ticking—because it knows this feeling.

Oh, it knows it too well.

 

But it can’t be—lithium saw to that.

And this isn’t the same.

There’s no loudness now, no muddled mess.

Just a quiet presence.

 

Like something has shifted—

quietly, but not back.

 

.....✍️