One day everything we have ever owned will be reduced to dust,
The last remnants of our lives
Scattered to the winds.
Just another child of the moon,
Another sad story.
Love and loss and laughter
Never to be remembered-
Tossed into the ocean.
Yet we see remnants of a struggle;
Names etched into stone,
Initials carved into trees,
Stories printed in ink-
All bearing the same timeless message.
I was here.
I was here.
I was here.

"...to release the captives and to set the oppressed free!"
These were the only words I caught from the booming preacher up front,
and I suddenly imagined myself being freed.
Undoing the chains and unlocking my cage;
and then, turning to him with tears in my eyes, I kiss his cheek and float away-
slowly turning into ashes as her fingers trace a cross on my forehead
"Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

Heart done with fingers in the window—
who created this?

I wonder, did you walk right from the past,
into this supermarket,
and draw unforgivingly on the glass
pane, by the bananas,  just
to leave your mark
knowing I would meet it
and dream of you?

Or did some lonely dreamer meet me in my same
eyes, about an hour ago, and wish on held hands
and smiles, thinking of times long past and
futures also

long past?

And living in this long-past of ours,
did this dreamer  write a symbol ode to all that is, was, and is now no more?

Thinking hot breath and finger marks conjured ghosts and Gods,
but hoping more for the second.

I thought it doesn’t matter
What you do with your life
Can’t still affect me
Or so I thought

I was just on the outside
Walking past a window
As I passed I’d glance
Catch just a glimpse

Just a short look nothing more
I wanted to pretend
All was still the same
That nothing changed

From the outside looking in
Things looked fairly normal
Until I saw her
Through the window

I just couldn’t walk on by
Like all the times before.
She was really there
And my tears fell

As my tears touched the window
It shattered around me
No more pretending
Reality

To finish anything in entirety requires a full circle- and goodbye is a picky eater. Good is the pieces of pie fully enjoyed already- don't forget the fingertips good. The ones licked crisp and clean from the plasticware every time. While bye remains the uneaten slices spoiling silence in the kitchen. Crumbs too stubborn to move along, to move anywhere at all. Notice these slices never once greeted each other on a dinner plate- and there is no place for distance during dessert.

2. Goodbye is invisible ink scribbled too quickly for certainty. Proper sendoffs deserve the type of visibility that billboards form. So if you have the audacity to send seven letters my way disguised as our final embrace- I will unwrap your formality, like 5am Christmas morning, and pretend I'm on the naughty list. Hidden messages lack a sense of transparency that leaves only second guessing and farewells should need no crystal *****.
Goodbyes are as good as guesswork- and we are not fortune tellers.

3. Goodbye implies loss or rejection, but well wishes are meant for times
when loss is undeniably absent. Wishing wells bathe separation with good intentions- each copper coin anointed an underwater masterpiece.
While goodbye addresses detachment with partial reflections, splitting waves too strict for clarity. So all I see are the ripples of me spread too thin, the pieces of me scattered in every direction. Goodbye wishes no one well.

4. Goodbye is simply one word. Goodbye is not naturally destructive. Goodbye is no vocal cord villain.
Words are neither inherently good nor bad because we ascribe their significance, but evidence suggests a one word farewell serves innocent ears unjust death sentences.

5. The moment you allow I love you to skydive from your tongue, the word goodbye steals the parachutes mid-launch causing fatal free fall to artificial grass your hands never actually planted. This land is lunar rock rare- desolate when day breaks.
Goodbye is not fertilizer for greener pastures- rather an open invitation for wildfire to reduce the cosmos to ashes.

6. Endings are inevitable and sometimes quite necessary. And I'm not suggesting we prolong foregone conclusions. But our parting words need not necessarily be regrettable. Goodbyes are often stressed in tragic spectacles only designed for Broadway stages and sometimes all that's needed
is a genuine platform to stand on to say something like-- I'll miss you or I'm not ready for this or I can't do this anymore.


7. Goodbye is not a last resort.
Last resorts lead to final destinations you never come home from and you were never home, you were never home for me, you were always goodbye. Goodbye was your one way ticket to paradise, the kingdom your words worshiped and call me a traitor if you must, but the paradox you fundamentally found comfort in is tyranny trapped in one breath.
And that's never been comforting enough for me to believe in, never been real enough for me to hold.
Goodbye is sweet sorrow- one hollow word that makes your smile hurt.
It's solid rain on sunny days, stolen hearts on lay away. It's two syllables that were forced to hold hands that were never ever friends to begin with.
Goodbye is an oxymoron- and it will never justify your warm hello.

Déjà vu
only exists
for those
whose eyesight
has amnesia