You Left Before I Knew How to Love You By Ishfaq Ali

You left without saying a word.

No goodbye.

No explanation.

Not even time

to remember your voice.

The day the neighbors told me,

they stood at our door,

smiling while holding a Bible,

as if the words inside

could fill the silence you left.

I didn't understand then.

Not the way I do now.

I was just a kid—

loud, spoiled,

wrapped up in toys I didn't need,

throwing fits over things

that didn't matter.

And while I was stomping my feet,

you were fading

in the next room.

Quietly.

Alone.

Cancer was taking you away

while I complained about

the wrong cereal.

I didn't say I loved you enough.

I didn't ask if you were scared.

I didn't even ask

if you needed anything.

Then you were gone.

At your funeral,

I clenched my fists

and shut my eyes tight,

as if anger could change time—

as if grief could go back

to a moment

where I still had a chance

to sit beside you

and just listen.

It's been eight years.

But some wounds don't know

how to heal.

Some losses get sharper

as you get older,

when you start to realize

what was taken

before you knew how to hold it.

And I'm still angry.

At you.

At myself.

At how life just kept going

as if you hadn't mattered.

So thank you—

for teaching me

that the people we love

don't always say goodbye.

That sometimes,

they just disappear.

Without warning.

Without reason.

Just… gone.

You didn't leave me with answers.

You left me with silence.

With an empty room.

With questions I whisper

to no one.

You left me

with the pain

of words left unsaid,

and a thousand things

I never got to say.

You left me

before I ever

had the chance

to know you

as more than someone

I was too young

to understand.

You left me

before I knew

how to love you.