Content note Mentions the death of a sibling.
I keep paying the bill so it rings in your empty room, your voice.
Leave a message, you say, as if you’d be back soon — your voice.
Our mother calls it twice a day, then hangs up before the beep.
She says she only wants to hear the hello, in tune, your voice.
You recorded it laughing; someone was teasing you off-mic.
That laugh is the last thing still warm in the gloom — your voice.
I tried once to leave a message. I said your name and stopped.
What do you tell a machine that has swallowed, like a moon, your voice?
The company sent a letter: the number will be reassigned.
A stranger will carry my brother’s line. Who will they assume, your voice?
I copied the greeting to three devices, a cloud, a cassette.
I am a museum now, guarding one small heirloom: your voice.
They say grief is love with nowhere to go. Mine has a number.
It dials it at night when the house is a tomb, for your voice.
When the line finally clicks dead and the silence is total,
I will still hear it, Yusuf, in every far room — your voice.
