The Empty chair (空椅) - Mikhail Bennett
There's a chair beside the window
where you used to sit
Crawling on cold
the sun don't warm it now
23 summers
since I've heard your voice
But I still save the porch light
for you somehow
Your mother walks past it every single day
Counts the steps
Pretends she doesn't see
There's a box of letters
that I'll never send
All the words I practiced
just for you and me
I still set a place at dinner for three
Some nights I pray
you're just held up somewhere
Your room smells like dust and like yesterday
But I can't let it go
I don't have the right to
They say that time will soften all this ache
But time just taught me how to hurt more quietly
Every birthday cake sits and waits for you
With one candle burning through the night
How many miles can a father's prayer travel?
How long till love finds you
wherever you are?
Though the leads away from home
still echoes with your name
We're still waiting
Your empty chair strings louder than the quiet ever could
Every room remembers you the way they should
Your mother's hands won't stop reaching for the phone
Your father's heart is beating just for you to come back home
We won't close your closet door
We won't pack your life away
Some people leave a shadow, but you left a space
that nothing else can fill
I wear your father's watch
the one you gave to me
Every tick is just another day without your laugh
I'm getting old waiting for you in this house
My hair turned gray
but my heart stayed young
Sometimes I swear I hear your footsteps on the stairs
Or the screen door opening
calling out for us
But morning comes with nothing but the same old pain
And I'm back to counting
counting down the years
Your little sister
still has dreams about you
Says you're happy somewhere with blue sky
I don't have the heart to tell her that you're gone
So I smile and say yes, baby, daddy's doing fine
But this house knows the truth
These walls have heard me cry
And that empty chair
that empty chair
is wrecking me inside
We've lived a lifetime waiting for one more chance to hold you
Take this pain and turn it into wings
Let us find you wherever you've been
Every prayer we've whispered to the stars
has been carved into our hearts
We won't forget your face
We won't stop your name
Love doesn't know goodbye
Love is forever the same
That empty chair, it's like a monument to us
To a love that time could never touch
Your mother lights a candle every single night
Your father's hands still reach for you in sleep
We hold your ghost closer than the living
We keep your memory warm and alive
Some people leave this world
but they never leave their home
And this home
will wait for you
forever until you come back to us
The chair is still here
waiting
waiting
waiting
