wonder if

I wonder if you knew the end was close, if every breath felt like the last you chose. If every laugh was hiding fear, if you knew your time was almost here. If every hug you held too tight was really a soft goodbye that night. Did you feel it deep inside your chest, that slowing beat, that final test? Did your heart already start to grieve for all the years you’d never see? Did you look at me and memorize my face, my voice, my tired eyes? You never warned me. Never cried. You let me think you’d always survive. You smiled like you had years to stay, like death was still so far away. Did you think silence would spare my pain, or love was better left unexplained? Maybe you hoped I’d never know, maybe you thought you’d still grow old. You laughed like tomorrow was guaranteed, while death stood quiet next to me. I search your words for something true, a hidden goodbye I missed from you. Now all I have is the way you stayed, loving me like you weren’t walking away. And that hurts worse than if you’d said, “I’m scared. I’m tired. I’m almost dead.” So I replay the things you did, the way you laughed, the way you lived, and I’m left with one question instead— did you know you’d leave… and chose love over words unsaid?