Your eyes told me
you wanted to be remembered.
Not just mourned,
but etched.
They said it like a secret
leaking out between breaths,
as if memory could save you
where love could not.

I remember.

I remember the way your voice
trembled when the world got too loud.
The way you carried your ache
like a hidden flame always,
careful not to burn the ones you loved.

Your lips always smiled
like someone on borrowed time,
and maybe you were.
Maybe the leaving had already started
long before your footsteps faded.

You said goodbye
not as a question,
but as a promise.

Not to punish,
but to finally be free
of the weight no one else could see.

And yet,
you left pieces.
Soft, deliberate shreds of yourself
in every room we shared.
A scarf. A song.
A look I still can't forget.

You wanted to go.
I know that.
But some part of you-
the part that bled for connection,
wanted to stay
as echo,
as ache,
as the hunger in us
to speak your name
again and again
so it wona fade.

So I remember.

Not the leaving.
Not the quiet.
But you.

The way you laughed when it surprised you.
The tenderness behind your guarded eyes.
The terrible beauty of a soul
who wanted both
oblivion
and legacy.

You are gone.
But we carry your fire
where it won't go out.

And I speak you,
still.

Penned by my hand on the 21st of Valnuary, in the year 976 AF.