Some goodbyes don’t feel like moments. Maybe the worst goodbyes are the ones that shift everything and we dont see it until later. Goodbyes don’t always announce themselves. They feel like earthquakes—shifting everything inside of you, leaving you aching in a silence no one else can hear. Sometimes they’re hidden in the everyday, only revealing their weight once you’ve had time to sit with them, to turn them over, to realize what they took with them. This poem grew out of that kind of goodbye — the quiet, unexpected kind that reshapes you long after it’s gone.

In the Blink of a Goodbye

In the blink of a goodbye
The pain is visceral and real
It makes me miss the hugs more
The painful ache I can’t conceal

In the blink of a goodbye
Headlights pass a house unseen
Still it holds all the love I keep
In walls you’ve never lived between

In the blink of a goodbye
I’d give anything to see your face
I’d recognize you anywhere
No matter how much time or space

In the blink of a goodbye
The quiet presses on my chest
Your absence echoes loud and sharp
A sound that never lets me rest

In the blink of a goodbye
I mourn the living shadows too
The ones who breathe, but not with me
A loss that time can’t quite undo

In the blink of a goodbye
The quiet dark has turned
I trace the paths you’ll never take
And count lessons painfully learned

Healing one moment at a time. Til next time gang, take care of yourselves, and each other