Before the Final breath

They say death is our finality,
The moment all things end,
But it’s isn’t always thunderous,
Not a scream, not a crash, not a fall,
A quiet disappearance before we know it’s begun,
A slow, steady, fading of life.

It’s the death of dreams once yours to hold,
The loss of love, of trust, of moments now cold,
Each loss, not just a thing gone,
But a piece of oneself, slipping silently away.
And in the midst of these small deaths,
You wonder if you’re still alive.

We live as if death is distant,
A final breath, years away,
But it lingers in the corners, hidden in plain sight,
It doesn’t wait for you to be ready; it takes what it will.
A breath, a heartbeat, a soul………
Left behind, you feel the weight of absence,
A presence no longer there, yet never truly gone.

Death doesn’t always cry out,
It whispers softly, a smooth, calm breeze,
That shifts and stirs what once was,
It begins long before the last breath,
In unnoticed moments,
Until the chair where you once sat,
Sways gently in the wind,
Dusty, empty and untouched.

You think you’ll recognize death, when it comes,
But it is a descent into the shadows,
So slow you don’t see it at first,
The silence that prepares you for goodbye,
Fading laughter, Eyes growing distant,
Memories losing their shape,
Until all that remains are echoes of the things you knew.
It leaves you with a space nothing can fill.

Still, you’ll breathe,
Still, you’ll move through the days,
You’ll carry the silent weight,
The loss of pieces you didn’t know were fading,
Until the final breath comes,
And it feels like nothing at all,
Because so much had already gone