I'm a sworn atheist, a non believer,
and yet when I think about you and your death and my loss,
a little part of me hopes there is something else.
Maybe reincarnation, or an afterlife,
even the preservation of your spirit in something inanimate
is better than the thought of nothing at all.
You were beauty and light, a bringer of smiles and happiness,
the idea that those things are only a memory now,
a sliver of something in my mind's eye,
is too much to handle.

You cannot be gone,
I never got to say goodbye.