My Boy

They speak softly,  
as if gentleness could bend time—  
as if words could loosen  
the knot in my chest.

You lie there,  
still trusting, still warm,  
eyes that have never learned  
what leaving means.

How strange,  
to hold love so tightly  
yet be asked to open your hands
and say goodbye. 

I count your breaths  
like they are something I can save,  
like numbers could bargain  
with the inevitable.

Do you know?  
Or is this just another quiet moment  
where I sit beside you,  
pretending the world is unchanged?

Your fur remembers my touch.  
My voice still finds your ears.  
Everything is the same—  
except the weight of this decision.

They say it’s kindness.  
They say it’s peace.  
But it feels like betrayal  
wrapped in mercy.

If love were enough,  
you would stay.  
If I could carry your pain,  
I would never let you go.

So I sit here longer,  
memorising the shape of you—  
the rise and fall,  
the small familiar sigh.

And somewhere between heartbeat and silence,  
I understand:  
goodbye is not the absence of love,  
but the last thing love must do.

Stay with me  
just one more moment—  
long enough  
for forever to begin.