Bare Rooms

We have nothing left to show each other
except empty hands that can only make
these futile gestures towards the boxes
that now hold so much of our once-shared lives.

All our memories piled up in a few
handfuls of photographs spread through the pages
of albums we no longer can open
or turn to in search of once-shared moments.

Here we go now, down the hallway again
and past even more useless memories,
on past far too many forgotten times
when we were together, then, but not now.

It is hard to find a photo of you
that does not involve me in some way too.
There are no photographs here to show us
how to walk away, how to be alone.

But now, I understand how to watch you
walk away, leaving me to close the door
on every one of these empty rooms
that contained most of our life together.

Is this all? The empty air of bare rooms,
a few dusty old photograph albums
are all that remain as I lock the door
on it all, and I too just walk away.