Bre

When you can no longer breathe,

And the pain’s too intense,

When you swallow the pills,

And you pray that it’s instant.

Your head feels light,

And your blood turns to foam.

Your eyes fight to stay open,

And your left there alone.

“It can’t be that bad,” they say while walking around healthy.

my final letter already opened,

wishing he could read it again for the first time.

I wonder if he cried the way I did

when I read it back,

but to think I finally told him I love him

was more than enough.

I imagine it still sits in its envelope,

far too precious for the rest of the world to see,

beside every other sheet of paper of mine

he promised to keep safe.

I remember the smile that grew on his face each time,

like a blind man seeing the world for the first time,

the corners of his eyes creasing with it,

to think my simple creations

brought joy to a man

who carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.

I wonder if he held one close at night,

like a secret talisman against the silence,

tracing lines with fingers that carried too much,

finding comfort in something small,

something mine.

But there’s one thing I know for sure,

a truth I don’t have to fabricate in daydreams:

he will never forget me. And maybe, somewhere deep inside,

Because I don’t want to miss you the way I do anymore.

Still I hold onto you, like a wound that refuses to heal,

As it burns, and it bleeds and makes the loss real.

It tears into my soul, and latches on hard,

As it starts to cover my beating heart with scars.

I long to see you, to wave goodbye once more,

Because goodbyes are bittersweet, to watch you smile when I leave and close your door.

But that door is closed, refusing to ever open.

for the stars kept the distance.

Now the moments are left as visions,

and my heart stays persistent.

Those were the reasons,

and that was true love.

Leaving you felt like a thousand treasons,

like clipping the wings of a dove.

The letter yellowed before

it was read,

and the last page turned itself.

I burned candles,

believing you were dead,

And I’ve lost a lot,

But one thing stays the same.

I’ve grieved a lot,

And I’ve cried a lot,

But one thing still remains.

The first was like an earthquake, the next the aftershocks.

Your loss hit like a tidal wave, and all I knew was washed.

The love that’s gone is grieved again,

And the tears that fall rejoice,

For I’ve loved you since the days began,

Tell me anything.

It doesn’t have to matter, it doesn’t have to be real.

I just need words, something to fill the silence,

because this room reverberates with things I can’t bear to hear.

You don’t have to fix it,

you don’t have to understand.

For you would never be able to completely fix a wound like mine.

Just speak, so I don’t have to sit in the quiet alone.

I stand where I have always stood,

but the walls are stripped bare,

The chair is filled,

and when I look up, I see a stranger.

You do not know me, but I have been observing you.

Not out of curiosity,

but because I need to know who you are,

because no matter what I tell myself,

I know you will never be him.

He left me with everything,

his words, his lessons, his kindness, his time.

And now you sit where he once sat,

unaware of the weight you carry just by being here.

I need you to understand,

every time you speak, every time you move,

it will remind me of him.

I will think of him in all your lessons,

and I don’t need you to replace him.

But I do need you to know that he is here, still,

I lit a candle on my birthday,

not for the dead but for the living I’m letting go.

I lit it in stone silence,

whispered your name like a prayer,

and watched the wax weep for me.

I want to cry, but nothing comes.

I’ve been waiting for the grief to arrive,

but it’s a slow, ticking process.

It doesn’t hurt yet,

and that hurts most of all.

I didn’t realise it was the beginning when we met,

just a Tuesday.

And yet I count the days like prayers,

all 672 of them, held in my hands,

each one eternal in my mind,

each one yours.

And on the last Tuesday, you’ll step away,

carrying all those days like a bruise beneath your skin.

Not only is this a poem,

but it’s a love letter, a final goodbye.

If I could tell you anything, it would be this:

you won’t read this,

At first when I would look up to the darkness above,

I’d see the shining stars,

the same as all the others do.

It was a Tuesday night,

And for the first time I met a shooting star,

the most magnificent star I could have the honour to lay my eyes upon.

He didn’t belong to the sky the way the others did.

Instead,

he sat in his place to preach stories about the night,

and that shooting star lit up my world.

The sky, oh so beautiful in its tenderness,

lit up far too briefly for me to fully grasp its light,

and I will always remember the way

I pleaded for that shooting star not to dim as rapidly as he had.

“Please don’t leave so soon,” I begged the star,

“Your ethereal shine lights up my eyes.”

“But everything must come to an end,” said the star softly,

in all of his quiet beauty.

So as all shooting stars do,

he lit the night briefly,

and I realized not all stars last forever

most much less than so.

But the rain the sky cries