My Poem ‘The Goodbye Cycle’

‘Goodbye’ is the saddest word there is;
saying goodbye is the hardest thing
you will ever have to do in your life;
goodbye can seem like a full-stop,
and a reminder of all the things about someone and you
that you have in common that you are going to miss;
saying goodbye is something that I run away from doing
and I will do anything to avoid,
like a magician trying to make sure
he isn’t hit by fast-flying knives.

The season is ending;
people are going their separate ways;
relationships are fading;
people are making a new start somewhere else,
and are saying that “I hope we will see each other again some day.”

I don’t want to see anybody leave
the places where I always know they are going to be;
I don’t want things to change,
but I don’t want to stop anyone
from doing what they must do-
I don’t want want to think or say anything selfishly,
because I do want everyone to be happy,
and I have always been a big believer
that nothing and no one that was born free
should ever be restrained and held in a cage.

I could not live with myself
if I thought that I were holding someone back;
I cannot think of worse prospect
than not being able to follow
the energy and the path of your passion-
support, love, belief, in me and of me,
is something I have always had;
inspiration, happiness, contentment,
a sense of belonging,
are things that I would never dream to ration.

I will never be able to truly say “goodbye”,
to say “see you later”, to say “see you in another life”,
or to say “remember me, and don’t forget me”,
with a straight-face to someone,
without having a tear of sadness welling up in my eye;
I know that life is a cycle,
I know that people have to go sometimes,
but I will never like or want to truly be
a part of the cycle of goodbye.

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My Poem ‘Robin’

A light has gone out.
A star has died.
The smiles and the laughter will live on
and dampen the fires of doubt;
who you were, who you are,
and who you will always be,
will fill our heart and soul with joy forever
and bring tears to our eyes.

You have been there all my life, since I was a child;
I cannot imagine the world without you in it;
your spirit still remains with us all,
and it feels like there is no one on this planet
who is not feeling an immense sense of loss right now
at your passing, and I myself am having trouble
coming to terms with the reality
that you are no longer with us, I have to admit.

It just doesn’t feel real;
it just doesn’t seem right;
knowing you are somewhere else makes me feel ill;
knowing that we all have lost someone special
makes me sad- like how a kid feels when he lets go
and can do nothing but watch the wind take away
the gift of joy that was his favourite kite.

I cannot begin to know exactly what to say;
I am genuinely struggling to know
how to stop myself from feeling so helpless;
I have been replaying every line and every word
that I heard you say all day;
I have been thinking about you
and about what I see of myself in who you were,
and echoes of you in me, and I see two people
who just want to make the world a better place
for us being in it, and also a shared wish
to surround ourselves with the people of this world
who to us are nothing short of the best.

Life is seldom straight-forward;
why we do what we do is not always easy to figure out;
life can sometimes seem like something
that we may want to run away from,
and sometimes we all can feel like a fraud,
but what you always taught me
was that no matter what is going on in our lives,
if we truly need and want someone to save us,
there is always someone waiting to throw us a life-belt.

You are someone who I will never forget,
and neither will my family,
as well as millions of people from all around the world,
who all agree wholeheartedly that you are one of the most
amazing, phenomenal, funny, smart, exceptionally-talented,
people there has ever been.
I will miss you so much, and I will remember you, watch you,
and think about you often, and I hope that you have found
what you were looking for, I hope you found peace.
Fly free. You will live forever.
Goodbye, you wonderful shining star.
Goodbye, Robin.

My Poem ‘Once seen never forgotten’

Memories and thoughts,
voices and echoes,
strangers and shadows;
what is going to happen next no one really knows,
what will happen all depends on where
and in which direction you want to go.
You can be just standing in the sun
when a face from the past will stop you
and say hello to you,
and say also ‘remember me’;
you can be lost in thought enjoying the sunshine
when something amazing and out of the ordinary
might happen and take you away to where you were going
and where you need to be.

It is amazing how many people you remember meeting,
and how many people remember meeting you;
it is the best thing ever when you run into someone
you didn’t think you would ever see again,
and you just start talking like no time has passed
between you seeing each other,
and it all just comes unexpectedly and out of the blue.

When I shake someone’s hand and I say goodbye to them,
I always think that that will be the last time
that I will see them in the light of the day again;
when I say goodbye it always feels like forever;
however, time and again, I am reminded that nothing is final,
and that life is sometimes as predictable as the weather.

There is nothing like seeing surprise in someone’s eyes;
there is nothing that feels like perfection than a connection;
there is nothing that is sweeter than a hopeful dreamer;
there is nothing more inspiring and invigorating
than the stories of a true dreamer, adventurer, traveler, story-teller.

When you leave your home, and you roam;
when you see things without having to look;
when you literally get a feeling in your bones;
when you know that something is meant for you,
and meant to happen to you,
and is more than just good luck;
when someone does something for you
and they do it with no expectation of anything in return,
especially if genuine compassion and generosity
doesn’t happen to you that often,
then you will see and believe that something, or someone,
once seen will never and can never be forgotten.

My Poem ‘Now’

If I knew that today was my last day on Earth,
if I could feel and see the last strength
and the last light of me flickering,
if I could feel my spirit getting ready to leave my body
and journey to the stars,
then I would go to the one place in this world I have always wanted to go,
with the one person who I love with the power of a curse,
and we would do something that would be my life’s defining memory,
and it would be so amazing-
not only would I cry from my eyes,
but I would weep from my soul, from my dreams,
from the final breaths being expelled from my lungs,
as all I could hear over everything else
was the beat of my heart.

If this was my last chance to do anything;
if this was my last chance to say anything;
if this was my last moment to think something,
to feel something, to want something, to have something,
I would outstretch my fingers and take hold
of the hand of the one right besides me,
and I would look into their eyes and I would sing.

If my face was being touched by the sun for the last time, I would cry;
if my lips were being kissed by perfection I would smile,
and I would truly be content to close my eyes
and let go of gravity for the first time, for the last time,
and have the means and the gift to fly.

If the time of my life were to be ending;
if the finish-line were to be fast-approaching;
if I knew the one thing that was ultimately
the most important truth worth knowing;
not being able to stay and continue to live
and experience more would hurt more than anything-
because that is the fight that we all one day lose,
because we simply cannot keep fighting.

I really do wish that I could life forever,
but I also wish that everyone else too could go on
and live alongside me and with me for all eternity;
I wish I had a heart and a body
that would never give out-
sometimes I imagine that I am looking back at myself
with eyes that have seen infinity,
and I imagine that I hear myself say,
and especially at the moment that the curtain closes on me
for the final time: enjoy the all of the now.

My Poem ‘Wave’

Saying goodbye,
you have to do it in your own way:
with a smile, with a hug, with a letter, with a wave.

Saying goodbye is so much harder than saying hello;
saying goodbye to someone who you have known for a long time
is so much harder than saying goodbye to someone
who you don’t really know.

I have lost count of the number of people I have seen leave and walk away,
and every time taking a part of me with them-
I remember the face of everyone who I have made a connection with,
and there are random times of the day when certain faces resurface
and make me think about something about them again.

Sometimes goodbye can only be for ten minutes;
sometimes goodbye can be the last thing you say to someone
for an entire year;
sometimes goodbye can be said but never heard,
but you find that goodbye and that release in something of theirs
that you find one day-
maybe even the feeling or the vision of a memory of them
sitting in the place where they used to sit;
sometimes goodbye can be said and seen
with a single, beautiful, tear.

There are many reasons for us to say goodbye;
there are many ways to keep things alive
even after they have died;
there are many reasons that we can find to give up-
but, personally, no matter what it is,
I would still want to try;
there are many reasons why we all smile, and cry.

Say goodbye, always.
You never know, you may not get another chance
in the way you may want to or hope for.
Be strong. Be brave.
Don’t fight what you are feeling.
Tell someone that you wish you didn’t have to go,
and that you will be thinking about them,
and the time that you spent together could not have meant more.

Before you turn away from anybody,
give them a smile, give them a look,
give them something to remember you by,
and give them a wave.

My Poem ‘The Forgotten Bouquet’

Moving on.
Putting the past behind me.
Thinking about the future.
No regrets.
Feeling hopeful.
Feeling human.

The bouquet of flowers is still in the hotel room,
where it will forever stay.
The moment we left it there and walked away,
what we had was gone, what we built,
and once were able to keep afloat
and sail the waves of uncertainty
was lost at sea-
even though there was a time for us both
that we looked at each other and said we were sure.
What we had was doomed to fail from the first minute,
and it instantly spiraled out of our control,
until we both knew our future together was uncertain.

Everything was good, until it wasn’t.
We could say anything to each other, until we couldn’t.
I never wanted it to end this way, ever-
not in my darkest and intense of nightmares;
I never wanted to feel such pain, ever-
not in the darkest hours of my despair.

This is my way of moving forward.
This is my way of stranding the bad memories that I have,
forgetting about them, leaving them, and sailing away.
This is my way of being rid of the poison in my heart,
and being cured.
This is my way of closing the door for the last time,
and leaving behind forever the forgotten bouquet.

My Poem ‘The Black Swan’

I saw a black swan on the river today,
swimming in the ice-cold morning air.
Alone the black swan made its way without a care-
one of the most amazing sights I have ever seen,
the swan captured my attention
and stimulated my imagination almost immediately.
The stark contrast of its beautiful black feathers and its red beak
to the white of the surrounding snow.
As it made its way down the river
the black swan looked up at me as it passed me,
and for a second we two exchanged a gaze that stunned me-
so much so that I watched until it left my sight
and went to where I was unable to follow.
I had never seen a black swan before, but on this day of all days
I was not lost on the significance of its symbolism and meaning.
Seeing the black swan,
as I made my way to say my final goodbye to a good friend,
made me stop and think
on this personal journey of remembrance that I was taking,
that the world was trying to tell me something,
that I was going to receive a gift on this day
that would be for me and for me alone to understand,
but the consequence of that would be heart-breaking.

I had attended my friends funeral, but I hadn’t really said goodbye;
I had written a poem describing how I felt about their passing,
but I felt that I hadn’t really spoken to them as I always had;
I felt that simply attending my friends funeral service
and sharing my sorrow with their family was not enough-
in my mind, I thought that I needed to go back to their grave
and reconnect with them in some way,
so that I may hear them again,
and maybe I would stop feeling sad.

The snow covered everything in the graveyard,
but I remembered where the body of my friend now lay
without a second thought.
The wind was bitterly-cold as I stood facing the frozen Earth
above and below the now empty shell of my friend.
As I spoke to them in hushed-tones hoping that they could hear me,
because I knew that my memory was quickly fading
and that time was growing short.
After standing with my head bowed in solace and in silence
remembering everything that I could about my friend,
an image of the black swan that I had seen began to grow in my mind
until it was all that I could think about-
and then, above me, to my awe, shock, and astonishment,
I looked up and saw a black swan flying in the sky over-head,
and I fell to the ground at the sight of the black swan’s wings
outstretched like a dark angel ascending to the white-coloured clouds.
After regaining my footing,
I was fortunate to just catch the sight of the black swan
before it disappeared into the fog of the horizon-
as I did I swore that I heard my name being spoken somewhere far-away
in a whisper that I could barely hear,
but its depth of resonance was unmistakable-
like the crashing waves of an ocean.

Making my way home, the gift that I had received continued to ring in my head.
My memory of the swan that I had seen was glowing,
as if I had seen it in infrared.
I felt this feeling in my heart that my friend was still here in some way-
that their part to play in the universe was now proceeding on a different path-
that they will return to life in other forms, their essence will never be gone.
I had thought it impossible to accept the truth of my friends death,
and to try and reconcile the reason for his return to the source of all life,
until I saw the beauty, and caught the gaze, of the black swan.

My Poem ‘I cry alone’

The snow is still falling.
The world outside my window looks and feels as if it is frozen in time.
The death of my friend is like a shard of glass impaled within my heart,
the pain of which there is never any fore-warning.
I have been trying to talk about what has happened with others,
but what is on my mind I cannot express
until I am all on my own and I begin to cry.

Overwhelming grief consumes me and has cocooned me.
I think about my friend,
and as I do I am reminded of the times that we shared,
the things that we said-
discussing our mutual likes and dislikes, and opinions.
I am trying to recall as much as I can about my friend,
before the waves of time come into shore
and wash away the impressions that my friend made
on the sands of my mind, and all that I remember of him
is carried out to sea.

Death touches us when we least expect it.
We don’t know what it feels like to lose someone until we do.
I feel like something is missing in the world now,
and the universe is unsympathetic.
I can’t begin to imagine what my friend’s family is going through.

I am writing now to try and make sense of my confusion,
to reconcile my belief in reason, necessity, my philosophy on life;
however, I am finding it hard to do so-
death to the living and to the grief-stricken
is like being stabbed with a knife.

When you hear that someone has died that you know so well,
it almost feels unreal, at first,
it feels like you are stuck in a dream-
it’s like having a fog around you,
or like being imprisoned in a glass cage,
and to free yourself you feel like you have to shout and scream.

Writing is like therapy.
Writing is helping me to say what is inside me,
and what better way to express anything than through poetry.
It is still hard for me to believe that my friend is gone.
I keep thinking about all the books that he will never read,
the films that he will never see,
the things that he will never own.
Then I think to myself how my friend came into this world with nothing,
and how he left it with so much.

Saying goodbye, accepting someone’s passing,
is something that you ultimately have to deal with by yourself,
in your own time.
I am coming to terms with my friends death as best as I can.
And that is why I must cry alone.

My Poem ‘Goodbye, my friend’

You always think things will last forever.
You always think people are always going to be there,
in the last place that you saw them,
and that life will always draw you back together.

My friend has just died, and I have just found out.
In all honesty, I am in shock.
I want to say the right thing
to describe what I am thinking right now,
but the right words just wont come out.

I have lost members of my family over the years;
I have lost friends that I have met and made
who I knew since I was a kid;
but I have never been there to say goodbye,
I have never been with someone by their side
as I lose them forever from my life, as they lose their life,
as I look-on and can do nothing but wipe-away my own tears.

As I sit alone now, I am trying to remember the last time
that I saw and spoke to my friend-
it seems like a lifetime ago in my mind-
I just can’t remember when it was,
and it is a crime of my memory that I cannot defend.

We take things for granted. I take things for granted, sometimes-
I don’t mean to, but sometimes I also take people for granted as well.
I talk to someone one day, I know that I wont see them for a few days,
but I always anticipate that I will see them again soon
the same as they always are:
laughing and joking, quintessentially themselves in every way,
and seemingly fine and well.

I lost a friend today.
A mother and a sister lost their son.
I don’t know what to say.
My friend wasn’t everybody’s friend,
but he was my friend,
and, in some ways, to him I think I was his only one.

I want so badly to find the words to describe my friend.
I want so much to put thought into what I say about him in what I write,
but saying goodbye now, not remembering the last moment that I saw my friend,
just doesn’t feel right.

The hardest thing to conceive is the end.
The most precious thing in existence, life-
the most important gift that we all take for granted-
the finite fortune that we are all born with
that we can’t take with us when we die,
that we should all not let fall through our fingers so easily,
that we should all be careful to not over-spend.

I am sorry that I never got the chance to see you one last time,
and to shake your hand.
You were genuinely someone who everyone knew how they stood with you.
And I can tell you now that you definitely left your mark on this world,
and on everyone you knew.
No one will ever forget you.

This is the way that we part-ways.

I wish I could have said this face to face, but…
goodbye, my friend.

My Poem ‘I never said goodbye’

I watched you from afar on that dark moon-lit night,
as you walked towards your future and left me behind.
I wanted to say so much to you before you left,
but I just couldn’t-
when I realized that you leaving now would be forever,
that I would never see you again-
I just couldn’t say goodbye.
We were only meant to know each-other for a short-time,
I know that now;
we were never meant to be anything else to each-other
than what we were;
we only knew one-another for a few months
and you may not even remember me a year from now,
but I just wanted to say how important to me
the days, the hours, the minutes, and the seconds with you were.

The day after I first saw you, I wrote a poem about you;
today, a week after I last saw you,
I cannot help myself from feeling regret
that at the moment you may have wanted to say goodbye to me,
I did not have the heart to say goodbye to you.
This poem is a goodbye from me, that I wanted to say on paper now,
which I couldn’t say to you in-person before-
this is the only way left for me to say to you,
in spirit and in words of any kind, at least-
that you made me a better person for having known you,
as I always felt that you would
from the instant that I saw you waiting at the door.

It doesn’t matter if you never read this,
or if you never learn that you had a profound effect on me;
what matters to me is what happens to you now, in the future,
at the moment that you realize that you have everything in your life
that you ever wanted.
I will be like a tear that rolls down your cheek and then gets wiped away-
you will forget me, as you should;
you will go on and touch the lives of countless people your entire life;
what matters to me is that you are happy.

I don’t want to be anything other than grateful, for the rest of my life,
because of the fact and the effect that you had on me,
that will forever stay with me;
I don’t want to do anything but smile and think of you every time I cry.
I wanted to write something for you,
so that I could read back to myself and remember you by;
I wanted to say the farewell to you, somehow, that I wanted to,
because I will always be sorry that I never said goodbye.