If I Lost You Too Soon Poem by cassidy Lovato

My son asked me once what I feared most,
and I couldn't give him an answer.
How do you put into words
the kind of fear that lives beneath your ribs?

It isn't monsters, or endings,
or the years slipping faster than I can hold.
It's the thought of a phone call
your name not lighting up the screen,
your voice forever gone silent in our home.

It's the fear of empty shoes by the door,
coffee cups left clean and cold,
the way the bed might forget
the warmth of your side.

Because you are not just my love,
you are the quiet rhythm my days hum to,
the steady pulse behind my laughter,
the calm that tethers me to now.

I fear the world would tilt without you,
that I'd walk through the years
half-alive, half-dreaming,
searching for you in the faces of our children,
in their smiles, their stubbornness, their light.

So when I say I love you,
I mean I am memorizing you.
the way your hand fits mine,
the sound of your breath in the dark,
the warmth of your name when it touches my lips.

Because one day,
we will have to say goodbye.
But not yet.