The Night We Became Ghosts

That night,
we didn’t speak of leaving
We folded our silences
like old letters
and placed them between the pillows
You touched my face
 like you were memorizing the absence
 that would come after
And I watched you become less
Not vanish—
but fade,
like a shadow stepping away
from its source
Love didn’t end
It changed clothes,
became wind,
 became dust
 that settled on untouched teacups
We still haunt that room, you know
Not as phantoms—
but as names
 no longer called
 in the dark


– Padang, 2022

Ardiansyah.DS was not born of words, but of pause—the space between two unfinished sentences. Rooted in Curup (Rejang) and shaped in Minangkabau, he studied literature at Andalas University (class of 1996). He writes not to explain the world, but to make peace with how it changes, unannounced. His poetry does not seek understanding, but offers quiet traces of loss, longing, and silence—reminders that light does not need to blind to be real, and that absence can be a form of presence waiting to be named.

Kirim Puisi Poetry Prairie