By: Monika Nair

Dark and dense as the color in my veins,
The ink laughed hard, about to run through the paper white,
Beginning to start an end, I mused over what to write.
A few words won’t be enough for a goodbye letter,
Maybe I should do it later, or, is the sooner the better?

How do I say goodbye…
With a heart that doesn’t want to,
With the arms that want to hold onto,
With the eyes that speak the unspeakable,
With the lips that still savor the kiss unlived.

You and me, my love, dance in the ballroom of my soul,
With the music of our laughters that still echoes.
Holding me like you held me when I would fall,
Moving with me, as if, together, we were whole.
Now, I am here, watching you walk ahead,
But I don’t have anything that I would ever regret.

I dunk the pen in the anxious ink and the seas inside me rise,
Knowing distance and time would amplify my pain, I decide to pull a smile.
As the pen drowns in the ink, my heart, in its own sea, begins to sink.
After a few awkward words of how things would be, I write the deed,
My heart continues to sink and my soul never ceases to bleed.

As the revolting ink ruins the once-innocent pure paper,
I say goodbye to the arms that have unwrapped,
I say goodbye to someone I never really had.