Absence

[billy]

i copied and pasted the 2nd draft onto the original for those who commented previously. as it is i'll leave feedback on the 2nd draft only without comparison.
you have to go over the poem and make sure you don't miss an word out. that's okay in novice and in serious too if it's the only problem but everything here feels over developed. we can't see the picture because there's too much going on. try and dig out the bones from all the excess flesh and see what's left. then you can pad some of the sharper edges if you want to

lines like;
the hole takes up more space can be something to work with
and
Force the chitter of her laughter from the rafters
and
Letting go isn't a hiker resting his pack to the ground,

there are more [though not too many] find them and make the poem from them
this;

Nothing to do but watch the sands of time
is cliche, cliche unless used purposefully and well add nothing to poetry they tear down the readers imagination and make his thoughts mundane. 

there are many lines that say too little (not enough bang for their buck) if a sentence add too little, change or remove it, it isn't doing it's job.

you have some really good lines in the poem but they're buried. dig them out and polish them up

Thank you for your reply. I looked over the poem and I think I agree that the ending is more powerful. I did some serious editing, and I condensed the poem a lot. I tried to use less words, more content. Here is the edited poem.

Draft #2
I wonder what nothing weighs. [i wonder] sort of dilutes a reasonable question [what does nothing weigh?]
Why is that absence weighs more where is the [it] apart from that try and be more succinct; [why is absence heavier]
than substance. Why is it that
the hole takes up more space than
the chunk of me taken. Taken by the
ghost that passed through and didn’t
leave all of me behind.
It sticks like a splinter, the feeling
that it was a mistake to let go, erase
the imprint of her smile I juxtapose on others.
Force the chitter of her laughter from the rafters
of my mind like they were wrens scattered
into the blanketed night.
Nothing to do but watch the sands of time
erode her immaculate statue, revealing
the cracked clay it was built around.
Its better this way, I tell myself.
Letting go isn't a hiker resting his pack to the ground,
it is the act of clearing the sweat, blood and tears,
picking burlap sacks of rice and dragging them
until all of the rice have fallen out of the
small holes in the fabric. Until the bags becomes
nothing, but a whisper on your skin.
The definition of dramatic irony.
I stand at the top of the mountain,
a trail of rice snaking beneath my feet outlining
the path I carved through the brush, with four or five
empty burlap sacks held in my hand, all I would
want is to share this sight with you.
And just like that, my bags refill, and I start my trek once more