The Moon I Could Never Keep

We only say goodbye with words

There are some loves
that arrive quietly,

not with thunder,
not with promises,
not with forever trembling on their lips.

Just a glance,
a conversation,
a moment that lingers longer than it should,

and suddenly,
the world is divided into two lives:

the one before you,
and the one after.

You were my moon and star.

The strange miracle
that lit the corners of me
I never knew were dark.

You carried light so effortlessly,
as if heaven had forgotten
to reclaim a piece of itself.

Your smile softened storms.
Your voice turned ordinary days
into something worth remembering.

And God,
how beautiful you were.

Not the kind of beauty
that lives in mirrors.

The kind that settles in the soul,
that follows a person home,
that keeps them awake long after midnight
wondering how someone so gentle
could exist at all.

I loved watching you exist.

Loved the way you laughed.
The way your eyes held entire galaxies.
The way your presence made life feel
less cruel,
less heavy,
less lonely.

For the first time,
I understood why poets spend lifetimes
chasing words they never find.

Because some people
cannot be described.

Only felt.

And I felt you
more deeply than I had ever felt anyone.

That was the tragedy.

From the very beginning,
somewhere beneath the joy,
beneath the hope,
beneath every beautiful moment,

there was a quiet knowing.

A shadow standing at the edge of the light.

Life.

Distance.

Timing.

Circumstance.

The thousand invisible hands
that pull two hearts apart
even when neither wants to let go.

We never spoke of it often.

We didn't need to.

The ending sat between us
like an unwritten sentence.

Waiting.

Patient.

Certain.

And still,
I loved you.

Knowing the tide would change.

Knowing the seasons would turn.

Knowing one day
our conversations would become memories,
our memories would become echoes,
and those echoes would become silence.

That is what I dreaded most.

Not losing you all at once.

But slowly.

Piece by piece.

Watching the stars fade
before the night is over.

Holding sunlight in my hands
and feeling it slip through my fingers.

Knowing there would come a day
when I could no longer call you mine,
yet my heart would refuse
to call you anything else.

You were never meant to stay.

And maybe neither was I.

Maybe we were simply two celestial bodies
crossing the same sky
for a brief and sacred moment.

The moon and the star.

Close enough to illuminate each other.

Too far apart
to remain.

But if there is one thing
life cannot take from me,

it is this:

For a while,
the darkness knew your name.

For a while,
my heart learned a kind of happiness
it had never known before.

For a while,
I was loved by the moon and star.

And though I know how our story ends,

I would still choose you.

In every lifetime.

In every sky.

In every impossible distance
between goodbye and forever.