“How do I learn to say goodbye”

How do I learn to say goodbye  
To laughter echoing in an empty room,  
To sunlight streaming through a window pane  
Where once the shadows danced in twos?  

How do I fold a memory small  
And tuck it gently in a drawer,  
Where scents and songs and sudden thoughts  
Might knock upon that closed old door?  

Is goodbye a gentle autumn leaf  
Afloat upon the breath of day—  
Or is it thunder in the distance  
Rolling steadily away?  

I press the petals of your voice  
Between the pages of my heart,  
Hoping time will turn to kindness  
As distance draws us apart.  

Perhaps goodbye is not an ending,  
But a path that bends beyond my sight—  
A lantern held against the darkness,  
A whispered wish for peace at night.  

So I learn to say goodbye in pieces:  
A wave, a smile, a grateful sigh—  
And trust that love, once sown and tended,  
Will linger, though I say goodbye.

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