the last time we didn’t know

sometimes i think about the last time i saw them.
not in a dramatic, slow-motion kind of way—
no cinematic music or golden hour lighting.

just… the last time.
a passing wave.
a half-laugh.
a text i left on read for no real reason.

it’s strange,
how ordinary the end always is.
how we tuck moments away in our back pockets,
unaware they’ll never stretch into another.

i didn’t do the things i always said i would.
i didn’t tell them the stories i wrote with them in mind.
i didn’t touch their shoulder a little longer.
i didn’t say, “you make me feel safe.”

because we never expect to run out of time.
we always think
there’s one more birthday.
one more apology.
one more tuesday morning.

maybe we keep our love soft,
sealed,
waiting—
because we believe there will be a better day to unwrap it.

a perfect version of us
that hasn’t been tired, or awkward, or unsure.

maybe we save our gentleness for later.
maybe we believe in later too much.

but then later doesn’t come.
and suddenly you’re staring at the last message you sent them,
and it’s a meme.
a stupid meme.

and you wonder if they laughed.
you wonder if that was the last sound they made
before they became a silence in your chest.

grief is weird.
it’s less about what happened,
more about what didn’t.

less about the funeral,
more about the phone call you never made.

less about the last breath,
more about the first one they took
that you didn’t realize would be part of your story.

i carry these ghosts like half-written sentences.
things i meant to say.
things i meant to do.
a love i meant to show more clearly, more loudly, more truly.

sometimes i wonder
if we’re all just rehearsing for goodbyes
we don’t know we’re saying.

like actors in the wrong scene,
smiling when we should’ve bowed.

and maybe that’s the cruelty of life—
that it doesn’t let you know
which “see you later” was actually a lie.

so now,
i try to treat people like they’re a fragile version of forever.
like i might be writing their name
for the last time in my memory.

i try to make eye contact that feels like a home.
i try to say the things that feel too soft, too much, too real.

because maybe
the only way to stop regretting the last time—
is to stop assuming we get one more.

maybe the secret is this:
love like you're always on the edge of never.