When I'm No Longer Here

 When I’m no longer here,

and dusk falls quiet on your skin,

don’t search for me in silence —

I’ll have walked far beyond

the edges of return.

Don’t look for footprints

where I once stood and smiled,

there, now, only stillness lingers,

and breathless echoes of our time.

When sorrow curls in your chest,

don’t call it by my name,

let it live nameless,

as I now do

in dust and dusk and fading flame.

Burn no letters of mine,

but don’t keep them near your heart —

just slip them under your pillow

as if I still sleep there,

barely breathing.

Forget me, if forgetting

helps you heal —

for memories, sometimes,

are cruel —

they turn fragile moments

into bleeding wounds.

And if, in sleep,

my name escapes your lips,

just know —

I’m still hiding

in the cracks of your dreams,

in the tremble of the dark.

Build your world without me now,

don’t leave me a corner in it,

but if you ever feel something missing,

read me again —

I live

between your fingers

and my fading ink.

I’ve left no warmth

in the river,

no whisper in the breeze,

no glimmer in the morning sun.

But I remain

in the hollow of every word

you’ll speak in ache.

Don’t kiss my photograph,

don’t light a candle —

those things won’t reach me.

Just know —

my eyes no longer hope

for your return.

And if someone else one day

holds you gently,

don’t carry my ghost

between your ribs.

Even shadows, sometimes,

must become shelter.

This is not the end —

it’s just the path

my soul must take,

where I walk

beside every poem

you ever loved.

When I am gone

don’t say,

He left me.

Say instead —

He became a poem.