Quietus

Quietus I have always feared my parents’ death more than mine. My own ending feels like a door I might learn to open, but theirs— it is a cliff I cannot approach without trembling. What am I, if not their breath carried forward? What am I, if not the echo of their hands, lifting me when I was small, teaching me that the world was both fragile and kind? If I must go, I will go as human: fragile, a spark flickering in vast night. But if they must go— How must I lead on? How do I pass by days? Yet love, they say, does not fade, It lingers in the memories lived, In the quiet way my features resemble them, the words I borrow without knowing. Perhaps when that shadow comes finally, I will not lose them entirely. I will carry them inside me, like the pulse carries life, Unseen but ever present. And still— I will always fear their death more than mine.