Statistically speaking,
most of us don’t get to say goodbye.
In either direction.
So as a mitigating factor we sacrifice
experience, push away
maintain
an odd pathology
of loneliness.

Or we humanize things
as a coping mechanism for The End.
You’ll tell yourself with full certainty
how much your cat must miss you,
in order to avoid
the primal,
animalistic understanding
that we will all one day
go suddenly
and without warning.

Along the way
a few things
will slip into your consciousness.
Much like how your uncle brought back
shivers from the war,
but left the rest
at the Front.

You'll visit the same smoke shop
every other day.
greet the same counter girl,
joke how the energy drinks you buy
will do more damage to your body
than anything else in the store.
Notice her new piercings
and tattooed freckles,
walk out promising you’ll see them tomorrow with smirk.
Then one day you'll move away
and never think to say farewell.

Or find the shop closed up
after spending a week out of town.
Nothing left save for a few garbage cans
and empty boxes
on the other side of the open sign.

The more you look at them,
the more they start taking on
a human form, an identity
like they’d been
kicked shoved punched
in the gut
cast aside until a city worker calls to have them disposed of
by the department
who handles such things.