The Ones I Still Wait For

A shared goodbye to the cats who made me feel seen— and whose absence still shapes the way I grieve.

Dedication

For Džoni,

who loved me with every inch of his soft, spotted heart.
I wish I had taken you with me.
I wish I’d kissed you one more time.
I wish I could’ve told you that you were enough.
You always were.

For Beni,

who died in my arms but lives in every tender part of me.
I’m sorry I didn’t know how to save you.
I never stopped wishing I did.

---

It’s been seven years.

Seven years, and I still cry like it happened yesterday. Like I’m still sitting in that car holding Beni while he screamed, still listening for Džoni’s paws outside the door that never opened again.
They were cats—but they weren’t just cats.
They were my family. My safe place. My only real sense of home.

Beni died in my arms.
Džoni vanished without a trace.
And neither of them got the ending they deserved.

Beni was my sun. He was warm, bold, vocal, a little demanding and a lot magical. He looked at me like he knew me, like I belonged to him more than he belonged to me. I felt like I had a child. A companion. A tether to the world.
And the day he died, something inside me ripped.
I held him while the light left his eyes, and the world had the audacity to keep going.
Cars kept moving. People kept talking.
But I was just a girl holding a tiny, still body that once held me together.
And I’ve never fully come back from that moment.

Džoni was the softest one.
He was shy, gentle, always trying to be small. Like he didn’t want to be a bother, like he was grateful just to be loved at all.
No one else really noticed him—but I did.
I saw how he burrowed under blankets like he was trying to disappear into warmth. I saw the quiet trust in how he’d flop on his back and wait to be touched. I saw a soul that just wanted peace.
And then one day, he was gone.
No final breath. No scream. No body to bury. Just… gone.
And I’ve lived with that silence ever since.
The kind of grief that doesn’t close because there was no door, no grave, no goodbye.

I carry so much guilt.
For not knowing what Beni needed in the end.
For not being there when Džoni needed someone to find him.
For loving them both so much it hurt—but still not knowing how to save them.
And I wish, with every part of me, that I could kneel down and whisper:
I’m sorry.
I should’ve done more.
I didn’t know how.
Please forgive me.

If I believe in anything, it’s that love lingers.
So maybe somewhere, on some level I can’t see, they still know they were loved like breath.
They still feel the way I call their names like prayers.
They still curl up somewhere in my dreams when I need them most.

These poems are part of the series dedicated to them and all I have to offer now.
No gravestones. No answers. Just words.
But they come from the deepest place I’ve ever written from.
This is my altar.
This is me asking for forgiveness.
And this is me saying: You were everything. You still are.

---

Poem 09: Not a Grave. Not a Goodbye

for Džoni

They said you were probably gone.
A neighbor, a whisper,
a maybe-sighting of something small and still by the road.

But no one called me.
No one searched with my desperation.
No one thought to say your name the way I would’ve—
like a prayer
like a mother
like someone who needed you to be okay
more than they needed air.

So all I have is space.
Not a grave.
Not a goodbye.
Just this long ache shaped like a question I’ll never get answered.

Where did you go, Džoni?

Did you wait by the door
hoping someone would open it with love in their hands?
Did you walk too far trying to find my voice in the wind?
Did you lie down somewhere soft?
Did it hurt?

God, I hope it didn’t hurt.

I hope the sky opened for you like it didn’t for Beni.
I hope your last breath was gentle.
I hope some stranger touched your head and told you
you were good
you were sweet
you were so very loved.

And I hope—
I need to believe—
that wherever you are now,
there’s warmth.
There’s safety.
There’s someone who lets you crawl under the blankets
without hesitation.

Because home was never a place.
It was a heartbeat.
It was mine.
And I’m sorry I wasn’t there to keep it beating for you.

---

Poem 10: The Blanket Still Misses Your Weight

for Džoni

I wash it.
I fold it.
I sleep beneath it.
But it doesn’t lay the same since you left.

You had this way of slipping under it
like a secret,
curling into the crook of my knees
or tucking your soft belly into my ribs
until we were one warm heartbeat,
beating quietly in the dark.

The blanket remembers.
I know it does.
It still dips in the middle where you used to settle,
still smells faintly of something that isn’t mine.

Sometimes I pull it tighter,
as if I can trick my body into thinking you’re there—
just hiding.
Just sleeping.
Just a little deeper beneath the folds.

But there’s no weight anymore.
No gentle purring.
No warmth that grows and hums back into me.

Just fabric.
Just space.
Just the memory of a night
where I held you without knowing
it would be the last.

And even now,
when I wake up tangled in it,
there’s a moment—just one—
where I almost feel you shift beside me.
Like you came back,
just for a breath.

But it’s always the blanket.
Only the blanket.
And the grief that sleeps inside it.

---

Poem 3: I Held You While the Light Left

for Beni

They say cats go off alone when they’re ready to die.
But you didn’t.
You stayed near me, as if you knew
I would need to know that you hadn’t slipped away angry.
That maybe—just maybe—
you forgave me for not knowing more.
For not having more.
For loving you so much it broke me and still not being able to save you.

I held you in the backseat.
Traffic all around us like noise didn’t matter anymore.
Your body, small in that box,
too quiet, too alert,
like the pain was pressing on something ancient inside you
and you were trying to stay… for me.

I said your name like it was a spell that could reverse time.
Like if I just said it enough, the next breath would be easier.
But your body kept twitching,
and your eyes stopped focusing,
and when you let out that scream—
God, Beni, that scream—
I knew.
I knew before the stillness.
Before your weight shifted wrong.
Before your tiny chest caved in like it was tired of trying.

I held you while the light left.
Not just your life—
but you.
That spark. That little sun behind your eyes that made the house glow.

It left.
And it took pieces of me with it.

I don’t even remember how I breathed after that.
Only that the world didn’t stop
and I hated it for that.
Because you had died
and somehow
cars kept moving
and people kept living
and I was just a girl in a moving car
holding a tiny body
that once had held me together.

---

Poem 7: If There’s a Next Life, Be Mine Again

for Beni

I don’t know where you went.
If the soul slips upward like fog or folds itself into trees,
if you’re a patch of sunlight now or some distant star I can’t name.
I just know you’re not here.
Not in the blanket.
Not in the hallway.
Not where your paws used to land like little heartbeats on the floor.

But sometimes I feel you.
When the rain hits the window just right.
When a cat I’ve never met stares at me too long.
When I pass a tabby on the street and my chest tightens before I can stop it.

And when I do—
I whisper, Beni, is that you?

I hope wherever you are, you’re warm.
I hope someone brushes your fur and lets you steal their pillow.
I hope there’s no traffic, no fear, no breathlessness.
I hope your body feels light again.
I hope you know I loved you like you were a part of my own skin.

And if there’s a next life,
a better one,
a softer one—

Find me.

Walk right up to me like you did the first time.
Rub your head against my leg.
Purr like you never left.

And this time, I’ll know how to save you.
This time, I’ll never let you go.
This time, we’ll get it right.

---

© 2025 Solena Vyhra. All rights reserved.
This work is part of the poetry collection All My Softest Ghosts Had Whiskers.
No part of this poem, including text or visual design, may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission from the author.
For inquiries, permissions, or collaborations, please contact: solenavyhra@gmail.com

Illustration and layout by Solena Vyhra.
Typography: Special Elite (poem titles), Signature (author tag).
Published on Substack via Where Silence Becomes Ritual.