The Last Witness

I do not fear
that my name will one day be forgotten.

 
Names are light things.

They fade from doorbells,
from contact lists,

from conversations that begin with
"Do you remember...?"

 
What I fear

is quieter.
I fear the day

when the last person who remembers
the sound of my laughter before grief

is no longer here.
 

When no one remains
who knows why I hesitate

before that particular song,
or why the smell of rain

sometimes feels more like an apology
than a season.

Who will remember

the version of me
that only existed beside them? 

 
The child I was with my mother.
The reckless hope

I carried to an old friend.
The weary courage

I learned beside those
who saw me breaking

before I learned to call it resilience.

 
We leave pieces of ourselves
inside the people we love,

like pressed flowers
forgotten between the page

of borrowed books.

And when they leave, 

it feels less like losing them and more like losing
the only library where certain chapters of us
were ever written.