Heartstrings

There are traces of you
still strewn through my days,
loose threads
strung among sinews,
like a coffee stain
that was once there,
gone now
like it never existed,
to everyone but me.

I still see your faint outline
against the newly white linen-
whether or not I am hallucinating,
you are still here,
and I want you to leave
(even though you already did,
and I want you to stay)
even though you already left.

You are gone
to everyone but me,
and I am tangled up
in your loose threads,
so carelessly abandoned in my heart,

even though

you never knew

they were there.