Goodbye Poem by Bien Nathaniel Gerodias

I sit behind you,
five years distilled into five minutes,
my hands searching for you and finding only
the loose ends of your sweater.
Fabric instead of skin,
silence instead of touch

The air carries your scent back to me,
a reminder I can breathe in
but never keep.
The sky is split,
too dark for the sun,
too faithless for the moon

Every street we pass feels borrowed,
each corner a countdown.
I want to press my face to your shoulder,
but even that feels forbidden.
So I stay still,
a shadow clinging to your outline

My house rises ahead,
but for the first time it is not a place of rest,
not a harbor waiting with warmth.
Here, there will be no kiss,
no gentle embrace before parting
only the quiet ritual of arriving at the end.

I release the threads from my hand,
as if letting go of a lifeline.
The night takes them,
and with them,
the last of what we were.