Not a Goodbye

by trogers5 on May 5, 2022


Poetry


two graduates
Photo courtesy of pixabay

by Mariela Flores ‘23 

This Poem is for my best friend.

A goodbye is near, it lingers in our air.

I feel the goodbye when we share a meal in a comfortable silence––

I feel the goodbye during late nights when all I want is to absorb any time

I have left with you.

It is dramatic to say my life will change when you are off

seeing, feeling, experiencing all new things,

you will have a new rhythm, a new song.

I will not know the words.

You will grow into the person I’ve always known you could be

and you will meet new people whom you will dance with

until your feet are tired, and your cheeks are flushed

with the feeling of this new life. And I will watch from afar.

This is not a bitter end. You are not going far.

But I will miss all the nights, mornings, evenings, minutes, days

hours, seconds, all the time we had together in this place that never quite felt

like home until I knew you were in it. Friend.

Here’s to you and all lines you’ve crossed.

Here’s to the cries, the fights, the feeling that kept you in bed

and the sun that took you out of it. Here’s to it all.

I will not say goodbye.

But I will say I miss you.

As

      you

             cross

                        the

                                  stage

with your head held up high, I will smile.

And I will capture the moment and keep it pressed to the inside of

my mind. I miss you. The world is lucky to have you in it––

I am luckier to have known you for a lifetime, for a moment, for a time.