The last Moment

TW.

Hi, Void.

"Hi, Aura."

I said goodbye to him today.

"I know."

No. You don't.

I don't think anyone can know what it means to say goodbye when there is nowhere safe to put the goodbye.

There was no proper room.

No quiet.

No flowers.

No time.

Just concrete dust in the air, people calling names, footsteps everywhere, and me standing there trying to understand how someone can be here one moment... and then become someone you have to say goodbye to.

"Did you talk to him?"

I don't know.

I think I did.

I remember saying his name.

I remember touching his face.

I remember telling him that I was there.

But everything after that is broken.

Like my mind took the worst parts and scattered them so I wouldn't have to hold them all at once.

"Did you kiss him?"

Yes.

His forehead.

One last time.

And I hated myself for knowing it was the last time.

Because how do you kiss someone goodbye when every part of you is screaming that this cannot be goodbye?

I kept looking at his face.

I thought if I looked long enough, maybe my mind would refuse to accept it.

I memorized him again.

His forehead.

His eyes.

His mouth.

Everything.

As if I could carry his face somewhere the war couldn't reach.

"Was he cold?"

...

Yes.

I don't want to talk about that.

I want to remember him warm.

I want to remember him sitting beside me.

I want to remember his voice coming from another room.

I want to remember being annoyed when he called my name too many times.

I want those stupid ordinary things back.

I would give anything for one ordinary day.

Not a perfect day.

Not even a happy day.

Just one normal day.

One day where nobody is counting the d ead.

One day where the rockets and strikes doesn't make your heart stop.

One day where you don't have to wonder who is missing.

"Did you cry?"

I don't know.

Maybe.

I think my body forgot how.

There was too much happening.

Too many people.

Too much noise.

And somehow the world kept moving.

That's what I don't understand.

How can someone disappear from your life...

and the sun still rise the next morning?

How can people keep talking?

How can bread still be baked?

How can children still cry?

How can a clock keep ticking?

How can the world continue when mine stopped?

"You're still here."

I know.

That's the problem.

I'm still here.

He's not.

And I don't know what to do with all this life that suddenly has nowhere to go.

I keep thinking I will hear him.

Sometimes I turn when someone says a name that sounds like his.

Sometimes I see someone from behind and my heart runs toward them before my mind catches up.

And every time...

it's not him.

"Do you miss him?"

I miss him in ways I don't know how to explain.

I miss him when I'm hungry.

I miss him when I'm afraid.

I miss him when I hear an explosion.

I miss him when the night becomes too quiet.

I miss him when something makes me laugh and I instinctively turn to tell him.

I miss him when I wake up.

I miss him when I fall asleep.

I miss him most when I forget for a second...

and then remember.

"Do you wish you had said something?"

Everything.

I wish I had said everything.

I wish I had hugged him longer.

I wish I had listened more carefully.

I wish I had stopped whatever I was doing and looked at him properly.

I wish I had known.

I wish someone had told me,

This is the last time.

Because I thought there would be another morning.

Another conversation.

Another meal.

Another argument.

Another laugh.

Another chance to say I love you.

I didn't know I was spending my last moment with him.

Nobody ever tells you.

They just take the person away...

and leave you with all the words you thought you had time to say.

"Are you angry?"

Yes.

At the war.

At the rubble.

At the sky.

At every siren.

At every person who told us to wait.

At every tomorrow that never came.

But mostly...

I'm angry that I have to remember him as someone who's gone.

I don't want that word beside his name.

I want his name to mean a person.

Not a photograph.

Not a memory.

Not a date.

Not a number.

A person.

My person.

"Then say his name."

...

I don't want to.

"Why?"

Because once I say it,

there is nobody here to answer.

...

I said goodbye to him today.

But I don't think goodbye happened today.

It will happen tomorrow morning.

And the morning after.

And every time I reach for my phone.

Every time I hear his name.

Every time I walk past somewhere he used to stand.

Every time I remember something I forgot to tell him.

Maybe that's what goodbye really is.

Not one moment.

Not one last kiss.

But thousands of tiny moments afterward...

when you realize,

again,

that they are gone.

And you have to lose them all over again.

"Are you going to be okay?"

...

I don't know.

I don't think I am supposed to be okay.

Not yet.

Maybe for now,

I just need to sit here,

hold his name inside my chest,

and let myself miss him.

Because he was here.

He was loved.

He was mine to lose.

And I was his...

for a little while.

Before war took him from me.

.

.

Aura

🍉