The Last Goodbye Still Echoes in My Bones

The night you left,

the air forgot how to breathe.

The world felt smaller,

as if the stars themselves bowed their heads.

Your shadow lingered at the door,

and my heart tried to chase it,

but you were already gone.

I can still hear that silence—

the kind that comes after something breaks.

It wasn’t loud,

it wasn’t angry,

it was just final.

Like the pause between heartbeats

when everything changes.

You didn’t slam the door.

You didn’t cry.

You just looked at me—

and somehow, that was worse.

Because eyes can say everything

that words refuse to.

Since that night,

your goodbye has lived inside me.

It hums beneath my ribs,

it aches in quiet moments,

it wakes me when I dream of peace.

Your absence isn’t empty—

it’s heavy.

It presses down on every breath.

I’ve tried to forget the way you said my name,

the way your voice cracked on the last syllable.

But memory is cruel like that—

it never asks for permission to stay.

I still walk through the rooms we shared,

half-expecting to hear you laugh,

to feel the warmth of your footsteps.

The walls remember us.

The floor still creaks where you used to stand.

Every corner whispers your name

when the wind moves just right.

I’ve learned that love doesn’t disappear—

it changes shape.

It becomes silence,

it becomes shadow,

it becomes the echo that lives

where your touch used to be.

There are days I pretend I’m fine,

that I’ve healed,

that your goodbye no longer lives inside my chest.

But then I hear a song,

or catch a scent you once wore,

and it all returns—

like a tide that refuses to stay gone.

Sometimes,

I think you still linger here—

in the quiet,

in the stillness between words.

I talk to the air,

as if it might carry my voice to you.

Maybe you hear me.

Maybe you don’t.

But I still speak—

because silence is heavier

when love has nowhere to go.

I’ve tried to fill the emptiness

with noise,

with people,

with laughter.

But nothing sounds the same.

Your goodbye changed the rhythm of everything.

There are mornings when the sun rises,

and for a moment,

I forget you’re gone.

Then the light hits your side of the bed,

and the truth returns like a knife—

gentle but cutting.

I carry your last words

like they’re carved into bone.

They’ve become part of me—

the way scars become stories.

You said, “Take care of yourself.”

And I’ve tried.

But how do you take care

of something that keeps breaking?

Sometimes I wonder

if you still think of me.

If your heart aches

in the same places mine does.

If you hear my name

in the quiet hours of the night.

Or have you moved on,

while I’m still haunted by echoes?

I tell myself

that one day,

the sound of your goodbye

will fade into something soft.

That maybe the ache will become

just another part of who I am—

a reminder that I once loved

deeply enough to hurt.

But tonight,

the echoes are loud.

They move through my chest

like restless ghosts,

searching for the pieces of you

that I still hide.

Your goodbye wasn’t just a word—

it was a wound

that learned to whisper.

And though the world keeps turning,

though time keeps walking forward,

I still stand there—

in that moment when you left,

listening for the sound

of your return.

I’ve come to accept

that love doesn’t end.

It transforms.

It becomes a shadow that follows,

a heartbeat that skips,

a whisper that lingers long after sound.

Maybe that’s what you left me—

not emptiness,

but proof that I can still feel.

Because even in pain,

there’s love.

Even in silence,

there’s memory.

And even now,

after all this time,

your goodbye still lives here—

echoing softly,

somewhere deep in my bones.

And when I walk beneath the moon,

or close my eyes in the dark,

I swear I can still feel your hand,

just for a moment—

a flicker, a trace,

a reminder that what we had

was real.

You may be gone,

but your echo remains—

steady, haunting, human.

And in some strange way,

that’s how I know

love never truly dies.