We came close

too close.

Like two things

already breaking

trying to feel whole

inside each other.

Your silence

fit into mine.

Your absence

felt familiar

even before you left.

And still

I stayed.

Because when you find

something that feels real,

you don’t question

how long it will last.

You just hold it

like it won’t disappear.

But everything does.

Slowly at first.

In the things

we stop saying.

In the spaces

that grow between breaths.

Until one day

you realize

you are no longer

being held

just… remembered

by something

that has already let go.

And somehow,

even that

passes for love

when you don’t know

how to leave.

Because I remember

finding it.

Not loudly.

Not all at once.

Just a quiet arrival

like warmth

in a place that had forgotten

how to feel.

It didn’t ask for much.

Just space.

Just time.

And I gave it both

without realizing

I was also giving

pieces of myself

I would never get back.

I noticed myself

growing lighter

not healed,

just… less whole.

Like something inside me

was already learning

how to let go.

So if death came

to sit beside me

and said, “it’s time,”

I don’t think

I would be surprised.

Not when I have already

known it

in softer ways.

In the way something beautiful

can exist

and still slip through your hands

like it was never yours

to hold.

Maybe I would look at it

the way I once looked at you

like something

I didn’t want to lose,

but somehow

already was.

And maybe

that is what death is

not an ending,

but the last trace

of every soft goodbye

we survived

without realizing

it was breaking us.

So if it says,

“it’s time,”

I will stand.

Not ready.

Not whole.

Just someone

who once found something

beautiful enough to keep

and learned,

too late,

that not everything

you find

is yours

to stay.