Those Who Leave, and Those Who Stay

There are places that do not forget.

Built to shelter, to endure, to bear witness-left instead to dust and silence. Time does not pass kindly where it is unwatched. The walls, once meant to contain warmth, have grown cold with long neglect, and something lingers in their quiet.

One returns, unthinking, as though absence leaves no mark. As though a place abandoned is a place forgotten. But forgetting is the privilege of those who leave.

For those who stay, there is only waiting.