If You Ever Leave, Please Leave Like This
By Shan Gogh
If you ever leave,
turn the lights off,
be quite and go without a whisper;
make me think that you were never here.
Do not leave fragments of yourself.
Do not scatter yourself on my welcome mat,
on my favorite cup, on my bed.
Do not forget to bring every piece of memory
that will remind me of you.
Do not cease to make yourself absent
in every fiber within me.
Do not abandon your favorite sweater
just to make me think that I could
always grab it in the cabinet and
feel warm and swamp myself in melancholy.
Do not vacate your pictures and post it notes
in the bathroom mirror just to remind me
of the love we used to have.
Do not embrace me and ask me to make you stay.
Do not kiss my eyes and beg them not to cry.
Dissipate; let the thin air fill the space you just left.
Leave no echo, no mark of your existence,
no backward pity glance at what might have been
if we tucked each other hard on
each of our heart strings.
Fuck the drawn out goodbye,
the soulful composition,
the apologies for the inevitable.
If you ever leave, deliver it simple.
Leave me the most precious memory
I will ever have, make me happy then cease.