the afterthought

I read somewhere that grief is just love with nowhere to go. It made me think, it made me think about all the things I have left to say to people I can’t say them to. You never know the day you last talk to someone or last hold them, you never know your final moments while you’re living them. And once you realise that this is the last time we will ever be doing this, a surge of every moment they have ever said your name, every time they told you they loved you washes over you. And you drown. You're drenched. But it is so bittersweet that swimming to the surface doesn’t seem like something you want do yet. So we hold our breath and we relinquish in the afterthought, we relinquish in the reminiscing. They’re alive within you and they will remain in the fragments of your heart. It stings to think about all the what ifs, doesn’t it? What if I had said something else the last time we smiled at each other? Will they remember as I do, or do I carry twice the hurt anyone does? It is a curse to feel everything so intensely, but it is also a disguised blessing. The hurt is worth it when I can love twice the amount anyone does. Eventually the hurt settles, the longing becomes scattered ash collecting at the bottom of your urn of grief. But I hope this grief stays with me, it is all the unexpressed love I wanted to give. The longing settles.