The Going Away…

Does everything really go away?

Does everything crumble while the ticking of two hands on a flat disc lose count of the fragments?

Does everything arrive just to leave- does it come only impose departures?

Does everything turn yellow and grey- does it waste into oblivion?

Does everything transform itself from need and want to the unnecessary, unrequited?

Does everything really go away?

Does everyone really go away?

Does everyone fade into the corners of our forgetting?

Does everyone arrive just to leave- do they come with their bags packed?

Is there a metamorphosis from being the need and want to the one who is carefully forgotten?

Does everyone really go away?

Then who stays behind in the silences between breaths and lines read in a book?
Then who lurks in the peak hour musings in a taxi rushing through a simmering city on edge?
Who breathes unseen messages on misty panes; who remains after the trees shed flowers and leaves like burdens?
Who refuses to leave after we bravely declare they are gone?
Who stays behind in our strength to live without them?
Who remains as the saltiness in our smiles that don’t reach the eyes?
Who remains in the cityscapes, in the busy-ness, in the feigned indifference?
Who remains in the song, in the silence of nostalgia?
Who remains in the pain, in the bliss, in the calm, in the restless wanderings?
Who remains? Who abides?

The going away does not happen- till we decide.
The ones who get left behind, the things that are leftovers- we the remnants decide.
We are not as powerless like our foolish hearts would have us believe.
Things and people, who go away, never leave…

Till we release ourselves;

till we refuse to be defined by who or what left us;

Till things left behind stop bearing the touch, taste and fragrance of things not there;

Till that moment of final goodbye, of never missing them ever after.