My Condolences

To My Own

Nothing has ended. And I haven't left.

We weren't even saying goodbye.

Yet there I was, riding my moped home, rehearsing the words in my head as if I were preparing for something inevitable.

The afternoon heat pressed against my skin. Traffic lights changed. People carried on with their day.

I kept editing the speech. Adding a sentence. Removing another. Trying to find the right words for a conversation that might never happen.

I laughed once. A strange laugh, tasting less like joy and more like brine and bitterness—the kind of laugh that escapes when you catch yourself mourning something that is still alive.

I haven't been eating much lately.

When I reached my apartment building, I stood in the hallway staring at the floor. I wanted, just for a moment, to stop thinking. To stop imagining endings. To stop rehearsing losses before they arrived.

I sang Hey Jude. Alone. A serenade for a singularity. It did not help; it only made the emptiness larger.

The pain sat in the middle of my chest like shards.

My mask was damp.

My sunglasses were damp.

Even my coat had caught the tears.

That was how much it hurt.

The strange part was that nothing happened. There was never a fight. No goodbye. No slammed door. Just me, riding home with a speech I would have to give someday, hoping words might protect a heart already deep in grief.

Maybe hope is the real culprit. Not hope for what is, but hope for what could be.

I tell myself that you are only passing through.

An oasis.

A place to rest for a while before continuing your journey.

I tell myself this because I am trying to soften the impact before it arrives.

Because if I prepare enough, perhaps it will hurt less.

But I know better.

No goodbye speech has ever saved anyone from grief.

I am a refugee of wounded childhood, wounded love, and a wounded life.

I keep searching for shelter.

And calling it home.

My condolences.

To my own.