Everybody cares,
just ask them.
They will tell you so,
with the ease of those never tested by the claim.
Until you need them there.
Until you need their care.
Then they look away.
Carefully.
Practiced avoidance.
A polite disappearance.
Afraid the truth will slip out
if they stay too long in the same room as it.
When shove comes to push,
they choose distance.
They choose silence.
They choose the version that requires nothing of them.
And for you, it is death.
Not dramatic. Not metaphorical.
Just the simple removal of response.
Now please be quiet.
We cannot acknowledge this.
We do not process that kind of signal.
All distress calls rerouted
into systems that do not answer.
There will be no disturbance.
There will be no interruption of comfort.
We will talk of love at the funeral.
We will stand close enough to call it grief.
That is the best we have for you.
Sometimes it is not the absence of love that wounds. It is the absence of response. The moment someone continues with their day while something in another person is asking to be seen.