Instead of saying goodbye,
buy a package of red velvet cupcakes
and leave them on the counter
with a note that says “I’ll miss you”
but that doesn’t say goodbye.
Instead of saying goodbye,
clean your room out and leave your mattress
just as you found it on the floor, with the sheets pulled up and the pillow fluffed, stuffed animals resting on the sides of the pillows
as if you will return to it later that night.
Instead of saying goodbye, leave a candle
that smells like your bedroom
on the night stand of someone you love,
letting yourself linger in all of the spaces
that your mind no longer occupies
but your heart won’t fully leave.
Instead of saying goodbye, trace the streets that
you once grew up on,
pounding soles against the pavements of your past
as the daytime turns to evening and the evening turns to night,
Walk by the creek
that you first fell in love with camp inside
And the campus
where you formed the strongest friendships,
And the lookout-point
where you used to go sit by to cry.
Instead of saying goodbye,
simply pass through the places
that have always surreptitiously defined you
and allow them to pass through you, too.
Instead of saying goodbye, gather friends around the dining room table,
And don’t talk about what used to be
Just discuss
All that is forming
All that’s growing
All that’s always, always, always coming next.
Instead of saying goodbye,
Pick up your phone
Pack up your suitcase
Pick up your heart
and wrap it tightly around your sleeve
Instead of saying goodbye, remember
All the times that you have said it before
All of the places where you’ve lingered and left,
All the changes you have watched pass you by
And just remember all the brilliance that followed.
Remember all the brilliance that followed.